• ^^ -i
ISSUE 15 •DECEMBER l98tmSUS0
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INSTANT
GRAPHICS
MasterScan
pBge scanner reviewed
IV
New artificial Intelligence software reviewed
Stop Press DTP - exclusive preview • Pick your training course • Dr Logo - quick reference chart
MASTERFILE 8000
FOR ALL AMSTRAD PCW COMPUTERS
MASTERFILE 8000, the subject of so many
enquiries, is now available.
MASTERFILE 8000 is a totally new database
product. While drawing on the best features of the
CPC versions, it has been designed specifically for
the PCW range. The resulting combination of
control and power is a delight to use.
Other products offer a choice between fast but
limited -capacity RAM files, and large-capacity but
cumbersome fixed-length, direct-access disc files.
MASTERFILE 8000 and the PCW RAM disc
combine to offer high capacity with fast access to
variable-length data. File capacity is limited only
by the size of your RAM disc.
A MASTERFILE hallmark is the provision of
multiple, user-designed display formats. This
flexibility remains, but now it's even easier. With
MASTERFILE 8000 you design your formats
"live"; no more questionnaires, just move your
format effects around the screen using the cursor
keys!
Record updating is even easier than before — just
steer your cursor to any field on the screen and
then insert/erase /alter as required.
Special options are provided for handling dates and
surnames, and column totals can be generated.
All screen work is done graphically — and hence we
offer unique panel, box, and ruled line options.
Choose the line spacing at pixel resolution — you
will be amazed how much clearer 9- pixel lines are
than the usual 8-pixels, (Study the picture.) And
all this faster than CP/M normally lets you paint
the screen! PCW printer functions, under menu
control, are provided.
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Keyed files are maintained automatically in key
sequence, with never any need to sort. You can
have unkeyed files too, where records can be
inserted at any point in the file.
Any file can make RELATIONAL references to up
to EIGHT read-only keyed files, the linkage being
effected purely by the use of matching file and
data names.
You can import/merge ASCII files (e.g. from
MASTERFILE III), or export any data (e.g. to a
word-processor), and merge files. For keyed files
this is a true merge, not just an append operation.
By virtue of export and re-import you can make a
copy of a file in another key sequence. New data
fields can be added at any time.
File searches combine flexibility with speed.
(MASTERFILE 8000 usually waits for you, not
the other way around.) You can even assign subsets
of a file into one or more of seven pigeon-holes for
subsequent reference or further manipulation.
Hegaglonerate Ltd
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FIELD -TO-FIELD CALCULATION is available,
using any mixture of terms and arithmetic operators
+ -*/{)■
MASTERFILE 8000 is totally menu-driven, fully
machine-coded, and comes with example files and
a detailed manual. We claim (modestly) that you
will not find another filing system with such
power, flexibility, and friendliness.
MASTERFILE 8000 costs £49.95 including VAT
and P&P to anywhere in Europe. Elsewhere please
add 20% for air- mail service. ACCESS/ VISA/
MASTERCARD orders are welcome, written or
telephoned, quoting card expiry date. Make
cheques payable to "Campbell Systems".
Our normal response is return of post, 1st class.
CAMPBELL SYSTEMS (Dept 8PL )
7 Station Road, EPPING, Essex CM 16 4HA,
England. Tel: (0378) 77762/3
8000
PLJUS
PUBLISHED BV
FUTURE PUBLISHING LTD
EDITOfllAL • ADVERTISING
PUBLISHING
4 QUEEN SJHEET
BATH- BAH EJ
TEl ■ 012S 446fl34
FAX • !)22 5 446019
TetecomOoiit -84:7X71 52
SUBSCRIPTIONS
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THE OLD BMU
SOMEFfTON
S<»IERS€T.TA117Py
TEL •04Sa 74011
VOUR CONTACTS
EDfTOn ■ BEN TAVLDfl
ASSISTANT EDfTOfl • ALEC RAE
TECHNICAL EDITClfl • ROB A1N3LET
ADVERTtSMG ■ MARGARET CLARKE
to pnoMCtioN ' mANg tavermer
ARTEDrrM-KMaALE
SUElSCBPriCIHS • CAHHI«.»»IE
POnTER
PUBLSHEi; • CHRIS ANDERSON
CO«H PHOTOORAPHV
STUART BAWES PHOTOGRAPHY
BATH
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COLOUR OniQINATKIN
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Mfe taf^a ^W en t» #n$i^ mr n^ w« fviM a
5 KEYWORDS
Editorial rumblings and ramblings
7 NEWS PLUS
The hottest gossip on the Amstrad scene
10 THE GOOD TRAINING GUIDE
Training courses might solve all your problems
15 STOP PRESS: STOP PRESS
A sneak preview of AMS's desktop publisher
18 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
25 CP/M CORNER
splitting your CP/M files into Loco- like groups
29 CASE IN POINT
How the PCW helps NHS dentists
32 PROTEXT
Getting the most out of Protext's mail merger
36 EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE
Maths and English can be fun, even in school
40 SOFTSTRIP READER
A new way to print out and read files
43 BETTER DESKTOP PUBLISHING
A guide to the practicalities of newsletter production
OPENING MENU
AmaZing News
StunninG Features
II kNockout Reviews
InValuableTips
SiZzling Offers
46 LOGO REFERENCE CHART
For Logo fans - all those commands summarised
49 DEBUGGING BASIC PROGRAMS
How to get your BASIC programs going
52 FUN AND GAMES
New adventures from Level 9 and Infocom
55 HARDWARE CONTROL
An interface to allow the PCW tall<^to electronics
58 MASTERSCAN ON TEST
61 LANGFORD'S PRINTOUT
Tales of horror for would-be novelists
63 LISTINGS PLUS
A pot-pourri of cunning BASIC listings
68 PUBLIC DOMAIN
Detaiis ol another great value PD program
70 TIPOFFS
Hordes of brilliant ideas to improve your PC Wing
74 THE GOOD SOFTWARE GUIDE
Comprehensive guide to database, educational and
communications software
80 SPECIAL OFFERS
Alan Sugar isn't the only one who knows how to cut
costs
85 POSTSCRIPT
t.ast but not least, your comments on the worid
THE ULTIMATE CRDlCE FOF^
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COMPUTER
ANTI-GLARE VDU SCREEN FILTER
3 " DISK STORAGE BOX
Oesignedi specjaDy tor ihe AmsTrad PCW 8256/
8512/ PCW 951Z also PC 1 51 2 'PC 1 640 it fixes
with ilie $et of V$iCTo tabs supplied and is easily
removed tor deanirtg.
0NLY£14.95
CONSTAUCTEO FROM NEW
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Protectroo for your eyes without
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iRemember mesh filters dog and ari-
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Research has^howr^ that heoclaches anci
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appear cloudy arid ifw charactef s to be
poorly defii^^
Our new anti-flare filter eNrniriates tfi<is
reflected light thereby improving ihe
contrast between the characters ar>d the
backgrourxJ.
Most problen^$ associated with
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disk boK of fers a lot at a low cost.
Its tough construction protects
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h^^ 4 ad|u si able index dividers to
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holds 25 -^ 3" uncased disks n 6
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FREE FLOPPY DISK PEN
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£10.95
3" CF2 DISKS
SPECIAL PRICES
maxell
£24.50 for 10
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DELUXE TRAVELLING CASE
I
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£70.95 for 30
(BOXED SEPARATELY)
BARGAIN CORNER
Crafted like fine kjfgage this three oiece travel set is designed specif ica^lly tor carn,^ing
your Amstrad monrior. keyboard and printer It's ideal lor personal ot busiriess use
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IS also space for disks manuals etc. at the sade of the monitor
Each component is individually protected and fits r>eally together in the outer case
for safe arvf easv transportation
CUSTOM DESIGNED
FOR YOUR
AMSTRAD PCW
8256.'8512
£49.39
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KEYWORDS
Just fancy that
Does anyone know who the
gentleman in this picture is? The one
beside Alec Rae. that is?
The picture comes from a press
release for Rom bo Productions,
whose 'Vidi PCW video digitiser won
the 1987 British lulic recomputing
'Special Award', Their PR photo
quite clearly shows SOOO Plus's
assistant editor, Alec Rae,
respectfully averting his eyes from
Elvis.
Rorrbo claim the pictures were
taken from TV broadcasts, but
unless Alec achieved tame unknown
to him we're fairly sure that they
have reused an image we left on
their discs when we returned their
digitiser after review.
A PROBLEM SHARED
/ know very little about the machinations of the mrid of high finance, and the
causal link between Ronald Reagan's tSelberations on his trade delidt and
the price of my Amslrad shares puzzles me.
However, i do know something about computers, and one particular
post-stodtmarket ftolocausl comment caught my eye. Apparently on the tirst
day of Octobers share price collapse, a couple ot hours before close of
trading in l^ew York the U.S. treasury ordered the computer systems lo tm
shut down. Stocldiroking firms use their computers to track the price, and
should a downward trend appear the computer automatically issues an
instruction to sett Tftus when the whole market dived, the computers began
to instruct other computers to sell, which depressed prices further, and the
whole thing got into a vicious circle and had to be abandoned.
People who have never used a computer have a touchingly naive faith in
them. 8000 Plus readers know better Computers are only as clever as the
people using Ihem, and the downwards spiral that these automatic selling
programs got into was not very clever at all. Any school computer science
student would have spotted the potential trap, yet the $100,000 a year
systems analysts on Wall Street didn't.
One day computers will be clever enough to make judgements on
whether or not to sell shares, but any system based on knee-jedt reactions lo
price drops is anything but clever. Computer controlled systems are going to
become more and more prevalent because they do offer such dramatic
labour savings. However, for the time being it seems that human judgement
is alive and kicking.
Questionnaire results
With great ceremony and scientific
impartiality, we've picked the three
lucky winners of the grand
questionnaire prize draw. They are:
Will Parfitt. London SE22; Rev. J.A.B.
Mayne, Co. Down; Ian S. Goodhart,
Stanmore. £25 vouchers good tor our
special offers pages are on their way
with congratulations.
Thank you to the many hundreds of
other readers who returned
questionnaires, and we'd like to assure
you that every single one was carefully
read. Although many of you seem
convinced there is no way we could
improve further, we're sure you will see
many new and interesting features in
the future.
The most interesting section for us
was the 'What magazines do you
read?' question. Among the most
mentioned were Nursing Times.
Marxism Today, Investors Chronicle,
Rail Enthusiast and The Beano (well,
once). What a cosmopolitan lot you
are.
Tale of two PCWs
Many letters to 8000 Plus end with a
plaintive P.S. along the lines of,
"Stick to the 6000s - forget the
9512", or alternatively, "Move with
the times, forget the BOOOs".
As we've said t)efore, the fad is
that the machines are virtually
identical apart from a tew go-faster
stripes: most product releases and
most ol our general articles apply to
both models ot PCW.
However, there are a few
packages specific to either the
8256/8512 or the 9512, usually
where there is a heavy dependence
on the printer. From now on all our
reviews will carry an extra item in the
product information line (where the
price and supplier are given) which
will say 'BOOOs only', '9512 only' or.
most commonly, 'All PCWs'.
International fame
80(X) Plus is privileged to have an
international award- winning writer as a
columnist. At the recent World Science
Fiction Convention, David Langford
scooped the awards (called 'Hugos')
for Best Fan Writer' and on behalf of
ttie fan magazine 'Ansible' that he
edits, 'Best Fanzine*.
Langford himself is too modest to
mention these accolades, but
nevertheless has dropped enough
heavy hints to the editor to make sure
that we don't forget to mention it. Well
done, Dave.
PLUS
The January
8000 Plus will be
out on Thursday
December 17th.
Make the New
Year easy and
subschbei
8000 PLUS 5
Since LocoScript 2 was
launched we've been
improving it and making it
more versatile.
Now, we've released version
2.12 together with these new
products.
If you haven't bought
LocoScript 2 yet, now is the
time to buy. Just read the
magazines and reviews to
see how good it is. The price
is still just £19.95.
a you've already bought
LocoScript 2 for your 8256/
8512, you can upgrade to the
latest version for just £5 or
get it free with any of tfiese
new products.
If you have a PCW9512, buy
any one of these add-on
products and get the latest
LocoScript 2 free!
More for your PCW with
LOCOMOTIVE
SOFTWARE
For the 8256, 8512 and S5|^
The Printer Character Sets Disc
If you use a different printer from the one built-in to your PCW, then you may
need a Character Set taflored to your printer or printwheel. The Printer
Chaiaaer Sets Disc helps you prepare this. Printing # to get E wiU be a thing
of the past with your new Character set. (For the 9512 this disc is combined
with the extra printer drivers disc)
The Keyboards Disc
Previously, each different national version o( LocoScript would only worlc
with the equivalent national keyboard. Now, if you add the Keyboards Disc,
you can mix and match the different versions of LocoScript and different
keyboard layouts. You could, for example, use a French AZERTY keyboard
with an English version of LocoScript 2.
For the 95ir
The 9512 Printwheels Disc
There are many different printwheels available for the printer buUt into the
PCW9512. If you want to use any one of these printwheels you'll need the
matching printwheel table. Your PCW9512 comes with just two printwheel
tables ; the Printwheels disc contains them alll So if you want to use an exotic
printwheel (say a French wheel on an English PCW), purchase the 9512
Printwheels Disc for Locc^cr^t 2 to use the printwheel to its full extent.
The 9512 Printer Drivers and Character Sets Disc
The PCW9512 can be used with a variety of printers in addition to the built-
in daisywheel printer, so for example you can add a fast printer for drafts. For
LocoScript 2 to operate these printers conectly, you'll need some extra
software called a printer driver. There are some printer drivers supphed on
the LocoScript disc vrith your PCW, but this disc contains printer drivers to
support a far wider range of pnnters
For the 8256
The Locomotive 8256 Memory Upgrade
LocoScript 2 stretches your PCW8256 almost to the limit - the more so if you
use LocoSpell or LoooMail! The Locomotive Memory Upgrade is a kit of
"chips" which boosts the memory of your 8256 to 512K (the same as in a
PCW8512). With this fitted, you can copy discs In one go, you'll rarely run out
of space on the M drive when editing and youllbe able to use the huge 78,000
word LocoSpeU dictionary in drive M. The kit comes with fuD instruaions and
even a practice chip for you to make your mistakes on ! Unless you have a very
early PCW, no soldering is re<iuired.
To: Katy Buchan, Locomotive Systems,
Allen Court, Dorldng, Surrey RH4 lYL.
Phone: (0306) 887902
□ I enclose a cheoue
payable to Locomotive Systems Limited
Q Please charge to my Access card
HUTW
Please send me the following products:
FOR THE PCW8256/8512
LOCOScnpt 2 (iui^uda Did LocoSpeU/LaooMail mastsr discs foe frw upatatlB) £19.95
Upgrade to version 2.12 (include oW mMm disc wUh tWi oidai) £5.00
■PD err TTnm-aH u tn tO (0% avaitabls with Isyboaidi or Char SMi disc)
iiKJinj UPgiaae to Z.IZ jindludeoldm«BtBrdiKwilhlhi«ord«rJ
KeytWardSDiSCdequiiw LoooScnpl 1 vanlon 2 . 12) £14.95
Print er Character S ets Disc ( t«mirM Looosenpt z¥er«ion2.i2) £14.95
(Note that thi« pivjuci wafi previously callad tha Frlmar Constructor Disc)
Locomotive 8256 Memory Upgrade £24.95
FOR THE PCW9512
_ 9512 Keyboards Disc £14,95
_ 9512 Printwheels Disc £14.95
_ 9512 Printer Drivers and Character Sets Disc £14.95
TOTAL £ .
NEWS PLUS.
IT'S THE PORTABLE PCW!
In a move more effectively
concealed than many product
launches, Nabitchi Computing of
Livetpool have announced a
portable version of the PCW8256.
At last it seems that you can take
LocoScript with you into the garden
or onto the train.
What Nabitchi have done is to
take the insides of an 8256 and
rehouse them in a custom-
designed case viiith a nevn pow/er
supply and screen. The new
display is a 4" diagonal TV tube
which can show the full 90 columns
by 32 rows. The portable PCW will
cost E399+VAT.
Also included is the 825 6's
standard 3' disc drive. It will, of
course, run all PCW 5ot\wate
unchanged, including LocoScript.
The keyboard is a standard 8256
keyboard, as is the printer. Most of
the time you won't need to carry the
printer around with you, but should
you have to then the portable can
drive that too.
One neat innovation is the
addition of a clock. You can
arrange to turn on the power to the
PCW at a set time, and if you have
a suitable start-of-day disc with a
PROFILE.SUB file the machine
would then automatically run any
software you wanted.
The whole unit - screen, disc
drive and printer - runs off
rechargeable batteries which ate
A Amsttad's new PPC portaWe coir^utsf
claimed to last for up to 4 hours
continuous use. tt can also be run
off the mains directly, during which
time the batteries recharge
themselves. The unit measures up
at 30 by 20 by 1 3 cm, and is said to
be significantly lighter than the
normal 8256.
But the Nabitchi portable isn't
just 3 portable. Because it is a
converted 8256, when you buy it
you also get the unused full-size
display screen left over from the
conversion. When working at home
you can connect the machine up to
this and ease possible eyestrain by
use of the larger screen.
For E199WAT Nabitchi will
convert current 8256s, putting them
It's obviously the month of the
portable computer. Amstrad's
newest product is a portable IBM
PC compatible, christened the
PPC.
For those who know and care
about the IBM PC world, here are
the gory details: the basic PPC
costs E399-i^VAT and has 51 2k
memory, one 3V2" disc drive, a full
size IBM AT enhanced keyboard
and a 80x25 row LCD screen. For
an extra £1 00 you can get a
second disc drive or a built-in
modem and full 640k memory. The
top range model at £599+ VAT has
twin drives and modem.
into the new case and returning the
portable version plus standard
screen for home use.
At the time of going to press we
hadn't seen the Nabitchi portable in
action, David Rathbone, ideas man
and driving force behind Nabitchi, is
very confident of its future,
revealing; "We were tempted at first
to try to build our own PCW clone
from scratch, but of course you
can't out-Amstrad Amstrad on
price. This conversion process
avoids all the hassles of relicensing
LocoScript and CP/I^.' He expects
the first deliveries of the new
machine in early December, Details
from Nabitchi on 051 -708 8775.
Say it with LISP
A PCW version of the computer
language LtSP has been
developed by programing
specialists HiSoft (0525 718181).
LISP is widely used in the area of
Artificial Intelligence programming,
and HiSott's version is an
interpreter with program editor.
HiSoft LISP is based on the
Common LISP standard, but
indudes extra commands to make
HiSoft Lisp
InlCETpreter for CP/M
HiSaft
best use of the PCW's features.
The LISP system costs £39.95,
but tf you don't already know the
language you might be interested
in paying £10 extra to get a tutorial
book too. For £49.95, HiSoft are
bundling iook/ngaff-ZSP, by
Open University lecturer Tony
Hassemer, which they say ties in
well with their software.
New BASIC manual
A common complaint from PCW
owners is that Mallard BASIC is not
covered adequately in the manuals
that come with the machine. Now
help is at hand in the shape of a
new manual from Locomotive
software.
The new version is a complete
rewrite of the manual that Amstrad
currently sell, it is 430 pages long,
split into a reference section and a
much-enlarged tutorial. New
sections cover the Jetsam filing
system in detail. GSX graphics
and using machine code
with BASIC.
Locomotive are
the company that
wrote Mallard .
BASIC, so they
ought to know a
thing or two about it.
The new manual costs
is £9.95, from Locomotive
on 0306 887902.
A
#
.<<?>
Tipping the scales at six kilos, it
isn't a lap-top machine. And at 43
by 23 by 10 cm you would need a
pretty big briefcase. The PPC won't
be available in Britain until mid-
January,
At the same time as launching
the PPC, Alan Sugar was hinting
that there might be a portable PCW
on the way. Answering questions at
the press conference Sugar said
that the Amstrad were not
considering producing a portable
printer for the new machine but that
they were "looking at"' a plan to
produce a portable PCW which
would include a printer.
Light-pen wars
Swansea light-pen
manufacturers Trojan (0792
205491) have launched an
aggressive attack on the
graphics market with a PCW
light-pen and graphics software
for only £29.95.
Trojan claim their art package
has all the facilities you need for
a free-hand drawing package,
and a number of features which
they say approach the realms of
desk top publishing {doesn't
everything these days?) with a
wide range of type sizes.
Trojan have considerable
experience of the light pen
mari<et being the manufacturers
of the LPI ' light pen sold by
Amstrad for their CPC machines.
By doing their own manufacturing
and programming Trojan have
managed to come up with a
product at a price that must
cause a considerable amount of
Interest
8000 PLUS 7
.NEWS PLUS
9512 Daisywheel problems
PCW 9512 owners wtio want to use
even the simplest foreign accents
in text are having problems. The
standard wheel that comes with the
951 2 has no accents on tt, but the
LocoScript word processing
software is actually pre-set up to
support a suitable altemative wheel
with all the accents.
However, this 'Swiss- French'
print wheel, as it is called, seems to
be virtually unot>tainable. Retailers
like Dixons have never heard of
I Spy
What is definitely the most
unlikely PCW accessory has
been launched by Streamside
Research - a fibre optic torch
which, they explain, is useful for
peering into disc drives.
It you can think of a reason
why you should want (o look into
your disc drive, you wilt have to
decide whether you want this
handy tool in blad^, green or
yellow. Price £2.00, contact
Streamside Research, 2 Rosary
Drive, Bridgwater, Somerset,
AWP TWI5 OfJe^ fwp
them, and Amstrad are referring
customer enquiries to their official
daisywheel distributors, Sternstat.
John Wyse, marketing manager
of Sternstat, confirmed that the
Swiss-French wheel was not being
generally distributed to the trade.
"We are only supplying the foreign
character wheels singly at the
moment. Dealers can order them,
and there's usually a 4 to 6 week
delivery time. We charge £2.50
handling, but what the dealers pass
MUFFLED ROAR
Nabitchi have certainly been busy
this month - as well as their
portable PCW, they have
developed a low-cost acoustic
cover tor the PCW951 2 printer.
The 9512 printer has already
attracted comment for the noise it
makes, although daisywheel
printers are never quiet. "People
sell all kinds of add-ons for the
PCW, like mice, copy holders or
whatever," said Nabitchi' s David
Rathbone. 'This printer hood isn't
an add-on - frankly, I think it is a
necessity," he humbly added.
The cover comes as a flat-pack
kit, and anybody who can knock up
on to customers is obviously at
their discretion " This handling
charge would be in addition to the
normal E5.81 retail price of the
wheels
Meanwhile, Locomotive, the
developers of LocoScript, seem
equally frustrated by the unavaila-
bility of the foreign character print
wheels that their software supports.
Loco's Howard Fisher revealed
that they were looking into the
possibility of supplying the wheels
directly themselves. "We'll try to
keep stocks of a few of every type-
style there is", he said.
The Swiss-French wheel is
directly usable with LocoScript as
shipped with the PCW9512, but to
use any of the more exotic wheels
(Greek, Swedish etc.) you will need
Locomotive's print wheel configurer
software at £14.95. Contact
Locomotive on 0306 887902.
an MFI bookshelf should he able to
cope. It costs E29.95, and is
available from Nabitchi on 051 -708
6775.
Stand and deliver
Perhaps it's Christmas coming up
but there has been a fair amount of
activity in the computer furniture
business.
Am-Stax, a London based firm,
have come up with an interesting
solution for any PCW owner who is
limited for space. The Am-Stax
stand is custom designed for an
8000 series PCW, holding monitor,
keytioard and printer In a unit that
takes up only U* of a square metre
of floor space and is no wider than
the PCW keyboard.
The screen slopes at 30° for
easier reading, with the printer
mounted above it. The keyboard is
also tilted to what designer Brian
Temple considers a better typing
angle.
Marketing manager John
RIppon suggests, with a chauvin-
istic smile, that the compact style
will appeal to housewives who want
to keep the PCW's insatiable
appetite for space under control.
But perhaps most interesting is
the price - £29.95. Future plans
include clip-on disc trays, copy
holders and mouse tables, and a
9512 version. Phone 01-373 4979
for details.
If you are looking for more room
to spread out in you might be
interested in Crompton Computer
Furniture's more traditional range.
The Compact Workstation is a desk
with a paper tray and catcher for
continuous paper, an optional
printer shelf above the monitor. The
prkies are also more traditional -
El 19.50 or £139.50 with the
overhead shelf. For details phone
0908 311544
A The Am-Stax PCW sland.
QUICKIES...
Epson have issued a writ of
0961) have cut their 10 megabyte
Prospell from Amor (0733
now get up to 4 fonts on one disc.
summons against Amstrad for
unit from E445+VAT to £299+ VAT,
23901 1 } is now available in a
compared to just one previously.
alleged infringement of trade
Comix Software (0462
special version for LocoScript 2
SuperType costs £24.95, or
marks. Epson's range of printers
682989) joins the rush of
users. If costs £29.95; present
£1 2.50 for an upgrade for existing
has such model numbers as
companies to bring out a special
Prospell users can upgrade for
users.
LQ800, LQ1000 and LQ2500, and
version of their software for the
El 5.
Dataphone (0733 230240) have
they claim that Amstrad 's new
PCW9512. Card Index has been
■ Diglta (0395 45059) have
released a low-cost modem at
LQ3S00 24-pin printer conflicts.
specially adapted to take
brought their popular SuperType
£79,95, Called the 'Demon 2', it is
Hard disc prices are dropping
advantage of the new machine.
printer typeface program up to
said to have all the usual features
too. as ASD Peripherals (021-359
The price is £34.95,
date with LocoScript 2. You can
plus a few surprises.
e 8000 PLUS
NewStar Software presents..,,
THE CATALOGUE
Software for PCWs and PCs
It's all in the NewStar Software Autumn Catalogue,
complete with introductions and explanations to the
various subject headings. Information to help you
choose, presented in one complete catalogue.
There isn't room in a single advert to show you the
comparative merits of the various databases, accounts
packages, word processors communications software,
or spreadsheets.
But there certainly is in 48 pages!
To order your free copy of the NewStar catalogue
call (0277) 220573
New Star Software Ltd., 200 North Service Road. Essex Civn4 4SG
Soles Tel; (0277)232637 Telex: 995143 NEWSTAG Fox: (0277) 232637
Mon-Sat 9.00 cm to 5.30 pm
TRAINING
IT'S QUICKER BY
Rob Ainsley investigates a few alternatives to
reading tlie PCW manuals
I
There's no magic about computers. Sure they'll
save you huge amounts of time, money and
tedium in the long run, but in between unpacking
your PCWs and having your computerised
paperless office running at the touch of a button,
there's a lot of hard work to be done. The problem
Is that the training of yourself and all your staff In
the intricacies of LocoScrlpt, SuperCalc, dBase
and the rest, can end up taking more of your time
than you'd be saving anyway.
10 8000 PLUS
If you dor? Y enjoy the game o> hunting through the
Amstrad manuals for hidden clues, or if you run a small
business on the principle that Time equals Money, then
you might find the idea of paying someone else to do the
hard work for you very appealing.
The answer could lie in one of the many PCW training
courses around the country. The emphasis is heavily on
LocoScnpt'for-businsss, with a few options such as
introductions to spreadsheets or databases also available.
You can usually choose between on-site training, in the
comfort and privacy of your own office or home, and in-
house training, done on the training company's premises.
Group size is generally two to halt a dozen though individual,
'customised' training is available by negotiation from some
organisations. There are all sorts of options, from haff-day
intensive tutorials in the centre of London lo a leisurely few
days in the Scottish countryside goKing and fishing!
The advantage of the courses is that in just a day or two
you or your staff can be professionally trained in all the
necessary word processing techniques to be used in the
office - and hopefully make up all those weeks lost in trying
to figure out how to change layouts and all that time wasted
setting italics via menus instead o! [+] and [-] keys. The
disadvantage is that they're not cheap. You can expect to
pay something like El 50 per person per day in London,
while in the provincial splendour of Scunthorpe you can get
the same for half the price, if you want the training to come
to you 'on site', you'll be paying more, of course, and general
opinion is that on site training tends to be hampered by
phone calls, unexpected visitors, urgent business etc.
However, the cost is really of secondary importance. An
un exploited PCW is five hundred wasted pounds, and it's
probably quite fair to say that the courses will pay for
themselves through increased office efficiency in a few
weeks. Expensive as it sounds, the hourly cost of PCW
training is only on a par with driving, horse-riding or piano
lessons, for example, and any course which promised to
teach you enough to be able to pass a driving test in one
day would be well worth a try.
Of course
Typical of the training courses on offer is that run by Office
International in Tottenham Court Road. The day 8000 Plus
visited there was a class of four trainees being shown the
basics of LocoScrlpt by instructor Linda Boscic. who has
over ten years' experience with various wordprocessors and
seems to have an eidetic knowledge of every menu and
screen in LocoScrlpt. Of the four trainees, two had been sent
by their companies, and two had come off their own bat.
One had bought a PCW for her retail outlet but was finding it
impossible to use, and the other wanted some ability with
word processing in order to get a better secretarial job.
"In the early days, it was 50-50 between private
individuals and people sent by their company," said Linda,
"but now we're getting more company employees, I suppose
as the PCW is being bought more by companies. We're
already running courses on the 951 2 and I expect we'll be
phasing more of those in as time goes on."
Training sessions are roughly weekly at the moment,
atternating between the SOOO machines and the 951 2s.
Staying the course
The course is brisk and businesslike - the trainees each
have their own PCW and are kept working solidly on it from
the nine-fifteen start to the four-thirty finish. Most of the time
they're being led by the hand through the various parts of
LocoScrlpt - "Press [f7], [f7], and then [f1], and you'll find
yourself in the header, which is where you can change the
layout of each document" - obviously only on the LocoScrlpt
1 courses - but at the end of each section there's a
document using the features just practised to tte set up,
typed and printed out unaided. The last part of the day
consists of a test - "How do you indent text?", "How would
you stop and cancel a print instruction?", and so on.
The four course members seemed quite satisfied at the
end of the day. "The main thing is getting some confidence."
said one, "I know I can do it now". They all felt much happier
with the occasionally tortuous routines for setting out
documents and layouts, without which the PCW isn't much
use to any business.
A few incidentals on PCW practice also come up - one of
the points made about direct printing was that it usually
takes twice as long as on a typewriter, because everyone
watches the printer churning out the line just typed before
starting on the next one I
Call for help
As well as the day's course manual and a plastic ruler
marked with 10, 12 and 1 5 pitch gradations to help you
gauge your layouts, the trainees can take home the disc with
all the files they've used and get plenty of very strong coffee
too. in addition there's telephone support aftenwards, so that
they can ring up if they run into difficulties when they
get back home - which is less than you'd think, according to
Linda. "Just knowing they can call for help if they need it
seems to give people the confidence to try things on their
own. We actually don't get thiat many calls after the
courses."
"I think the problem is that a lot of people run out and buy
PCWs and are disappointed to find they have a lot of things
to learn before they can start using it. But having said that,
LocoScript is a brilliant word processor. For office use. the
dot matrix printer output could be improved upon, but the
951 2's seen to that. For the money, any of the PCWs are
incredible value.'
HoMine support
For many PCW-based small businesses, learning LocoScript
may only be the beginning of the story. Where do you go for
advice on how to use your PCW more effectively, on which
software to buy, and who can you call when you can't get
your labelling routines to work?
Fortunately for frustrated small businessmen there is the
SBSG - the Small Business Support Group - in deepest
Worcestershire. The aim of the group is to provide complete
support for businesses using ttie PCW, everything from
training in Loco to supplying specially- written software.
Members can use a hotline telephone support wfien thiey run
into problems; SBSG are familiar with most packages you'd
be likely to see in the course of business, dBase, Delta,
Condor, WordStar, SuperCalc etc.
Walk before you can run
There ere, like most courses, two optlorts In
LocoScript, Introductory and advanced. The
Introductory course starts from switching on
and assumes no previous knowledge at ell. h
cowers the really basic sluff you would need
for business letters, making letterheaiis and
setting up documents ~ saving, copying,
deleting and moving files, manipulating the
pitch, Italic, bold commands by the [*] and [-]
keys, etc., setting up templates end handling
layouts. Though It's easy when you can do It,
some peopte not surprtstngty find sequences
like [f7]-(f7>[f1] to get In the header, cursor
BCT09S to set pitch, down to set msrglns, then
exit-exii-enter-exll-enter la get back to adit,
contusing the first time.
The aitvanced course covers phrases,
headers end looters, pagination, blocks and
so on, and assumes a basic knowledge
roughly equal to the topics covered In the
Introductory course. It is possible to do both
courses but it's recommended that you allow a
month or so between the h«o to let the first lot
of Intonnstlon sink In.
Members can also seek general advice on how to build
up a system of software and hardware to suit their particular
business needs. SBSG will provide anything from mundane
services such as converting data discs from, say, S'/j" IBM
PC to 3" PCW format, right up to high level consultancy
work. They are also developing their own business software,
such as some specialised 'vertical software' packs which to
suit certain professions, like Estate Agencies or Dentists.
These are essentially customised versions of the SBSG's
own-brand Matchmaker' business handler program
(something like a database-plus-lat)eller-cum-organiser).
Relax
Training is done on the customer's premises if required,
though Jane Davis and Barry Rubin, who run the SBSG,
reckon the best results are actiieved away from the trainee's
office, in the rural tranquillity of the Cotswolds. There's a
personal touch to everything and trainees are encouraged to
bring their own PCWs, business letterheads, data discs and
so on. so that they can learn what they need to know for
their own business - and go away with customised
programs they can use the next day.
Barry and Jane find that one of the most popular areas
for advice and consultancy is communications. To many
small businesses, comms is a closed book, and the SBSG
are keen to stiow how, for example, the process of sending
telexes can be made mucti easier and simpler using a
modem. Subscription to the group gives members free
registration to electronic mail and telex services, wh^h
would normally cost £50.
Membership is £39 plus VAT (£44.85) per year and
Dixon's are currently offering membership packs at that price
with every Amstrad PCW they sell Unless you're quite
happy figuring out how to work your PCW into your business
by yourself, it could be a very valuable investment.
YOU DIDN'T GET SUMMER BUT YOU STILL GET.
fUMl^lRTALl
CP2 DISCS For use on
6128, 8256 & top drive 85 12.
Ten pack was £34.50
nOVIf k20 Code: AA10012
CF2DD DISCS High capacity
for use on 8512 second drive -
ten pack was £48.50
HOW ONL Y £30 c^.aaeoov
DISC CASES Individual
plastic cases for CF2 and CF2DD
discs
Ten DHL Y £S code: aawoos
RIBBOHS High quality film
carbon ribbons for PCW printer
Single Pack £5 cod« aak«»5
Three pack of fabric printer
ribbons for PCW printer
HOW OHLY £9.99 MKoco.
LABELS 1,000 standard one
wide, white address labels - were
£5.95
HOW DHL Y £5 c«i. mboo^
DUST COVERS tailored
twin-set to cover
monitor/keyboard and printer -
was £1 1
How only £8.99 cc<i,:MDoooi
LISTIHC PAPER 2,000
pack ofSOgsm plain white listing
paper
OHLY £12 codtiAAPooos
STORAGE BOXES
Lockable, anti-static disc storage
boxes will hold up to 60 discs -
was £15.95
HOW DHL Y£12 c«^ AAmai
CLEAHIHG KIT Includes
100ml screen cleaner, 100ml
cleaning fluid, 10 Safe Wipe
cloths, 5 foam swabs for
keyboards, 1 anti -static cloth.
Was £11.50
JVOMf DHL Y£S c^.m««£_^^_
CP/iH Plus Handbook
Published by Heinneman this is
the official Digital Research
reference book for the 6128 &
8256. Was £22.50...
HOW DHL Y£i8 c^:amuooo,
SOFTWARE
DA DRA W The general
purpose drawing package.
Create and edit quality
presentation charts & diagrams.
Was £49.95
HOW JUST £2S! c^ as.^.
CBASIC COMPILER
Well known Digital Research
compiler - was £49.95
A snip at £12mS0 cad^ awoooi
A
GRAPH Business
graphing pacl<age which is easy
to use producing a wide range -
pie, bar, stacked, scatter &
combinations, import from
spreadsheets - was £49.95
How just £2S
Code: A5X0002
PASCAL MT+ The best
selling superset of ISO standard
Pascal from Digital Research -
was £34.95
Reduced to £^2.50
Code:
ASP0002
For more great offers
on any software in
'The Source' call Barry
or Tracy on
0488 849€9/84e9€
i
Pri«s are correct at time of printing and although we endeavour to keep all our prices fixed, The Software Mail Order '
Group Ltd.. does reserve the right to change prices and specificahons of the products on offer without prior notice.
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TRAINING
Directory
Below are a few of the PCW-specific training courses
currently operating around the country, though the list is by
no rreans comprehensive. There are various others (mainly
in the south-east) which you might find advertised in the
various PCW publications. However, things change fast and
there will inevitably be many new outfits setting up. You'll
often find adverts in local papers of private individuals
offering help, and you can soon tell with a quick phone call
wlietfier the petson is organised and affable enough to be
useful.
Bear in mind that there are probably dozens of computer
courses not spwcific to the Amstrad in your locality: details
will be available in the Yellow Pages or from the local library.
There are invariably evening classes on some sort of
computer or word processor in most towns. Some of these
may be on the PCW, but many colleges use IBM PC
compatibles which aren't of any particular help for
LocoScripters. Even so. LocoScript apart, much software
mrs on PCs as well as PCWs, and if you can master dBase
II on a PC you'll be a long way to learning it on a PCW.
If you get really stuck your best bet is to ask around and
find someone who uses PCWs regularly in their office or
business who could offer some help, PCW owners are
generally a friendly and public-spirited bunch and would be
only too glad to help.
The types of course offered are listed separated by a
semi -colon. All prices include VAT and are per person, per
course. Most companies offering 'LocoScript' courses now
offer a choice of Loco 1 or 2 tuition.
♦ Amstrad User Clubs Learning Centre
Centres throughout whole of UK"
Book through 20 Vine Place, Sunderland SHI 3NA. 091-510
8787/9595.
Introduction: LocoScript: SuperCalc: dBase
Each course £57.44 (User Club members) £63.25 (non-
members) - includes take-home training pack
♦ British Teiecom
Birmingham, Bristol, Ealing, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Sale
Booking through 8 Quebec St, Leeds LSI 2HN. 0532
451000,
Introduction to LocoScript: Advanced LocoScript: dBase:
SuperCalc: Lotus; WordStar
£130 per day
« Office International
247-257 Euston Rd, London NW1 2HY. 01-388 9344.
Introduction to LocoScript: Advanced LocoScript
£11 3.85 per day
♦ PS Partnership
27a James St, London WC2E 8PA/ 50 London Rd,
Sevenoaks, Kent TNI 3 IAS. 01-379 3198/0732 460003.
Introduction to LocoScript; Advanced LocoScript; Sage;
Delta; SuperCalc; WordStar
Half day £86.25, Full day £138.00
♦ Banna Wordprocessing
29 New Bond St, London W1Y 9HD. 01-493 3336.
LocoScript: SuperCalc
£172.50, or on customer's site at £143.75 + travelling
♦ Techfrlend
54 Kelvedon CI, Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey KT2 SLF, 01-
549 7313.
^mstrad lamiliarisation; Introductory and Advanced
LocoScript: databases: spreadstieets
On customer's site, POA but around £75 per hatt djty
The reel thing
If you don't fancy the idea ol a Iralnlng course,
or can't make it from your cottage irtduslry on
St Kilda, you might buy one ot ttw training
packs there are around. 'Reel Time' Is a set ol
cassette tapes and a disc which guide you
from lero thrcugh all! he functions of
LocoScript. The ta|)es have a running
comn^ntary tetling you which key to press
when and explaining what's going on. There's
a suinmary chart and, on the 'electronic t>ook'
disc, problenvs testing your knowledge ol the
hmctlons you've learned (with answers).
The disc hsetl Is ralh«r less use Ihart the
cassettes, which lomi a nk» guide to your
first few hours with the PCW. As such the
pri<% of £34,44 Is not the biggest bargain in
the wo rid, taut it you prefer the sound ol a
voice leading you through LowScript to
ploughing through a manual, (his is what you
want
It's available from Head Une
Cotnmunk:atlons ol Hereiord, Tel. 0432
271S98.
•«' Dynamic Training College
5 Julian CI, Woking, Sun-ey GU21 3HD. 04862 71499.
LocoScript
In house £1 10, On site £10 ph + 25p per mile travelling
^ Computext
58 Castle Dr, Horiey, Surrey RH6 9DE. 0293 776683,
LocoScript; spreadsheets; databases
POA. but generally £1 per hour private, £200 per day for
companies
♦ Aztech MIcrosltll
173 Basingstoke Rd, Reading, Berkshire RG2 OHF, 0734
75S768,
LocoScript
One day course (Loco 1) £74.75 (Loco 2) £86.25
♦ Small Buslrwss Support Group
Kennel La, Bank BIdgs, Broadway, Worcester WR12 7DP.
0386 853610.
All business software and full telephone
support/consultancy; membership £44.85 per annum
On site £171 .35 (members) £201.25 (non members) per
day; in house £90.85 (members) £1 13.85 (non members)
per day.
♦ Meg a wise
Scunthorpe, 0724 863283,
LocoScript: SuperCalc; Cardbox; Sage; Delta; dBase
In house £85, On site £1 25, discounts for groups
♦ Computer User Training
1 Winckley St, Preston Pfl1 2AA, 0772 201346,
Introduction to LocoScript
2 day course £103,50
« Gary Hall
The Lodge, Sidmount Ave, Moffat (near Edinburgh) DG10
9BS. 0683 20440.
LocoScript; Maslerfile 8000; Sage Accounts: Money
Manager
Half day £25, one day £45, two days £89; accommodation
available £6 B&B
Mr Hall suggests you make a fishing and golfing holiday of it!
I WORD PROCESSORS i
LOOOMAIL 1 EM.BS
LOCOSPELL 1 EM.Bfi
LOOOSCfflPT 2 (NEW) £19.95
LOCOSPELL 2 (NEW) „ ESS 95
LOCOMAIL 2 (NEW) £3S,S6
Micfowora/MicnoFiLE ess.m
NEWWOR0 2 t57.B5
POCKET PfiOTEXT £34.95
POCKET WORDSTAR £37.95
POCKET WORDSTAR DELUXE £54.95
PnOSPELL £23.95
PnOTEXT CS7.95
TASMAN TASPELL SOOO £14.95
TASUMN TASPHINT 8000 £12.95
TASMAN TASWORO aooo £ie.95
ACCOUNTS
MAP INTEGRATED SUfFE £138.95
MICRO SIMPLEX £89.95
MONEY MANAGER. £21.95
MONEY MANAGER PLUS £33.95
SAGE POPULAH ACCOUWTS £75.95
SAGE POP. AOCOU^fTS PLUS £114.95
SAGE ACC. SUPER COMBO EUB,95
SAGE POPULAR INVOICING ES3.9S
SAGE POPULAR PAYROa £53,95
SAGE STOCK R INVacING E59.95
SAXON CASH BOCK ACCOUNTS.... E25,95
1 GRAPHICS 1
Dfl DRAW
. E44.95
DR G HAPH
, E44.85
EXBASIC
.Ell. 45
FLEET ST. EDrrOH PLUS
. E4S.95
GRAPHICS OPERATING SYS
.£56 95
EiC. STUDIO FONT UBRARY
a£C. STU. SNIP AFIT (1-5)/EACH
MICROTflAFT
.£14,45
. £14.95
.£69.95
NEWSOESK INTERNATK3NAL
POLYPLOT
.£35.95
.E2Z,95
POL YPBI NT ,
.£26,95
POLY SERIES ICOMPLETE)
POLY TYPEFACE a
.£48.95
.£17.95
POLY TYPEFACE 3
.£17.95
THE DESKTOP PU8USHER
F34 95
i DATABASES 1
DBASE tl
£94 95
CAMBASE
.£44.95
CAFtDeOX
. £49.95
CONDOR 1
.£75 95
DATABASE MANAGER
.££8.85
DELTA 1 .25
,£78.85
FLEXIFfLE
.£45,85
MASTERFILE 8000
,£44,85
MICROFI LE/MICROWORD
,£45,85
1 SPREADSHEETS 1
CRACKER II
,£39.95
multipijAn
.£59 95
SCRATCH PAD PLUS
SUPEflCALC II
. £45.95
caa95
1 LANGUAGES 1
ARNOR C „
.£68.85
OR C BASIC COMPlL£n....„ £44,95
DR PASCAL MT+ £44,85
FTL MODULA-2 £49.85
HISOFTC [WPTH EDTTOFTI £33.95
H I SOFT PASCAL 80 „„ £33,85
HISOFT DEVPAC 80 (VEH 2) £33,85
NEVADA COBOL £33,85
THE KNIFE £18.85
I GENERAL & UTILITIES j
AUDIO TLTTOHIALS £8.95
CAXTON TOUCH & GO £18.85
COMPANION £17,86
IAN KEY CRASH TYPING £16.95
lANKEY TWO FINGERS £19,95
LABEL PRINTER „ £22,95
MASS EASY LABELiER .„ £28.85
PLAN IT £22.85
ROTATE E 1 8.85
SAGE MAGK; FILER £54.85
THE FRENCH MISTRESS £17,96
THE GERMAN MASTER „,. £17,95
THE [TAUAN TUTOR £17,95
THE SPANISH TUTOR ,.„ £17,95
THE WELSH TUTOR £17.95
9512 GOOD REASONS WHY NABITCHI WILL
ALWAYS STOCK PCW'S!
COMPUTERS
]
FREE secURIOOn DELIVERY:-
PCW 8255 COMPUTER,,, (28S,0q| , £343,85
PCW 8512 COMPUTER,,, 1388,00) , £458,85
PCW 9512 COMPUTER,,, (489,00) , £573,86
UPGRADES
PCWB25e MEMORY UPGRADE £22.00
PCW8258 a DISK DRIVE (FD2j £130.00
PCW851Z B DISK DRIVE p^D4) P.OJ^
PCWS258 MEMORY & DRIVE £150.00
I COMPUTER CARE |
PCW825a;/85 1 2 PAPER GUIDE E12.B5
8268/8512/8512 SCREEN FILTER... £17. 85
CPS826e {nS232 INTERFACE) £54.85
PCW8258/8512 DUST COVER SET.,, £7,85
PCW 8512 DUST COVER SET £8,85
I CF2 3" DISKS ONLY £2,75 |
I COMPUTER RODENTS I
AMX MOUSE £73.95
ELEC. STUDIO UGKT PEN * £88.95
ELEC, STUDIO MOUSE • £88.95
* WTTH NEWSOESK INTERNATIONAL
ELEC, STUDIO VIDEO DIGITIZER.,.. £88.95
GRAFPAD2 ....£130.00
KEMPSTON MOUSE £85.95
KEMPSTON MOUSE/FLEET ST £115.95
KEMPSTON M/WBFTE HAND MAN.. £85.95
PCW8000! PRINTER EXTN LEAD ...£18.40
I PCW PHONE HOME |
AM STRAD MODEM V21/V23 £98.95
MIRACLE WS4000V21/1'23 £195.00
SAGE CHIT GHAT WTTH VIEWDATA DR E-
MAiL INCLUDES MODEM £1 84.95
AS ABOVE ALLfSOFTWAHE £21 5.95
I PRINTER RIBBONS I
MINIMUM ORDER TWO RIBBONS:-
PCW825e;/8512 SEIKOSHA RIBBON. £4,75
PCW825S/85 1 2 MULTl-STHIKE E6,75
PCW95 12 (BLACK) £3,85
AMSTRAO DMP 2OO01/30OO , £5,75
AMSTRAO DMP 4000 „„,E7,75
PRINTERS
Zl
n
I THE PAPER WHfTE
SCREEN REDUCES EYE
STRAIN AND GIVES FAR
CLEARER DISPLAY
^ LARGE 51 2K RAM
FITTED AS STANDARD
GMNG FAST POOGRAM
EXECUTION
o control over
the contrast and
brkjHtness unuke
PCW8S56
NABITCKI STOCK
THE FULL range
OF GENUINE
AM STRAD PGW9512
PRINTER
DAISYWHEELS
LARGE 780K 'A" DISC
DRIVE NOW MEANS
SOFTWARE SUPPUERS
CAN WRITE EVEN MORE
POWERFULL PROGRAMS
PROFFESIONAL FULL
SIZED KEYBOARD MEANS
NO MORE MISS-TYPING
H BUILT IN CENTRONICS
INTERFACE FOR CONNECTION TO
OTHER PRINTERS UKE THE
DMP3000 OR DMP4000
8f
FAST DAJSYWHEEL PRINTER MEANS HK3H
LETTER QUAUTY PRINT FINISH,
NOTE: THE DAISYWHEEL PRINTER MEANS YOU
GET THE COMPUTER FOR FREEI NOT
FORGETTING THE FREE TRACTOR FEED UNIT
FOR CONTINUOUS PAPER
EVERYTHING THE 8256 SHOULD HAVE BEEN!
FREE SECURICXJR DELIVERY:-
AM STRAD DMP 2000,., (135.00) ....E15S55
AM STRAD DMP 3160... [1 78.00) .... £204.70
AMSTRAD DMP 40O0...(315,0O) £382.25
AMSTRAD NLO8500.„,|34B,00).,.,E401,35
I PCW 9512 DAISY WHEELS I
COURIER 10 ES.80
FWESTK3E PK^k 10 £5.80
RECTA 10 £5.80
ORATOR 10 £5.80
LETTER GOTHIC 10/12 E5.S0
PRESTIGE ELnE12 £5.80
SCRIPT 12 £5.80
MINI GOTHIC 12... £5,80
I NABITOHI SOFTWARE |
POWERFUL SOFTWARE AT BUDGET
PRK:es
EXBASIC £1 1 .45
mallard rasic can have gfiaphics
without the pain
a.p.c, september 1988
ttsbask; vol i £7,95
rrates treasure five star value
VERDICT
8000 PLUS FEBRUARY 1887
rrsBASic VOL2 e7,86
A WOFnXWHILE BUY VERY GOOD
VALUE FOR MONEY
YOUR AMSTRAD PCW OCTOBER 1987
Nabitchi have always been known as
THE PCW people. We intend to
uphold this tradition for many years to
come. The launch o1 the PCW9512
has again assured us all that the PCW
tradition will live on. Once again
Amstrad have given us a machine that
caters for all tastes. It has a vast range
of business software from accounts to
desl<top publishing, ft has a full 51 2K
RAM to accomodate the most ad-
vanced programs of the future. The 3"
730K disc drive gives vast data
storage on the most reliable form of
magnetic media. The full size profes-
sional keylward means that typing is
made easy. The 15 inch daisy wheel
printer gives perfect letter quality on
page sizes up to A3, there is no longer
a limit to the number of fonts, simply
change the daisy wheel. The ever
popuiar locoscript 2 with spell check-
er and mail merge means that even our
managing director David Rathbone
can now write a letter. The paper white
screen gives far clearer characters and
thus reduces eye strain with contrast
and brightness controls to adjust the
display to your personal requirements.
Nabitchi computing are the biggest
PCW company and we intend to stay
that way.
OFFICIAL ORDERS WELCOMED FROM PLCS, GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATIONAL ESTAB-
USHMENTS. EXPORT CUSTOMERS SUPPUED TAX FREE - ASK FOR GILL R06INSC»J.
PCW 951 2 ACOUSTIC HOOD
AVAILABLE NOW AT
£29-95 + VAT
ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT POSTAGE FREE TO MAIN L^ND UK
Q »f^BlTCf«l
INSTANT CREOrr FACILITIES AVAILABLE
MERSEYSIDE INNOVATION CENTRE
131 MOUNT PLEASANT
LIVERPOOL L3 5TF
TEL. 051-708-8775/051-708-0123
PLEASE MAKE CHEQUES PAYABLE TO 'NABITCHI COMPUTING' ACCESS AND VISA ORDERS WELCOME.
There are obvious disadvantages in being the last
company to launch a desktop publistiing package.
But as AMS prepare to launch Stop Press, the last in
the expected line of major DTP packages, they must also
agree that there are one or two advantages.
For a start they know what they are competing with.
Software designers Tecnation certainly seem to have aimed
at producing a program with a few differences over Its rivals.
While competitors have been thinking primarily of a system
to produce news sheets in proper newspaper format, Stop
Press aims to take a wider view of DTP.
Of course you can still produce a newspaper page on
Stop Press but it is a program that gives you greater control
over the graphic elements of the page than the words. For
example, it offers a freehand art package and a simpte-to-
use graph drawing package, as well as all the fancy fonts
and text handling facilities normally associated with DTP.
Getting it right
Worthing within the limits of the PCW the designers admit
that you can't do everything. In Stop Press there just wasn't
room for a text editor. Whether this is a major disadvantage
or not must depend on the user's own method of working.
The theory is that you use LocoScript to get your text right
and then place this text file onto the page. All the style
rajmrrands, such as bold and italics will appear correctly,
and you have the benefits of doing all your writing in a
familiar environment.
Stop Press offers a choice of 1 8 text sizes between 10
and 1 92 point, and you can infinitely alter the width ot and
height of letters in each type-size. You can also adjust the
'kerning' (the space between the ietters) and the leading'
(the space between the lines). This allows great
opportunities to adjust the text to exactly til! the space
available. There are 14 different fonts available to ring the
changes with.
Stop Press steals a trick from LocoScript and runs on a
two level system of menus or command keys. Instead of the
familiar small pull-down menus. Stop Press has a targe
control panel which fills the whole screen. From this you can
run any of the program's varied operations simply by
pressing a couple of buttons on the mouse (coming from
mouse champions AMS it naturally enough lays a strong
emphasis on the use of a mouse).
The panel is set out in a grid with letter and number
references, and you can call up any function at any time with
a couple of key-strokes just by typing in these references -
once you know the system well enough to remember the
references.
Ail operations can be carried out by using the mouse to
click on icons so there are no complicated commands to
leam. Some ot the icons are very strange, and you may
need a good imagination to work out what all the pictures
signify!
Icing on the caice
stop Press has a few features that make it a bit different to
the other DTP programs. You can produce graphics with all
the features you would expect in a stand-alone free-hand
drawing package. There are even some unusual ones such
as the ability to design your own small symbols and fill
patterns.
If you don't have the artistic ability to create your own
works of art you will still find the art editor facility useful when
you want to try out some fancy design work on your pages.
You can use it to touch up your headlines, for instance. Of
course the program comes with a full set ot clip art examples
and it will read graphics from digit! sers and the new
MasterScan.
PREVIEW
ADVANCE
STOP PRESS
After a year of activity In the Desktop Publisfiing market is there room
for another DTP package? Alec Rae gets a sneak preview of Stop
Press, the offering from Advanced Memory Systems. Is it different
enough to make up lost ground?
Will ■■
ize Winning llama is£
1 km tlutUrri t> Ui
tie»»»r» till Ot
tri»4-fri$ imtt •» t*»
lUfti It Ikr Irtr
I MS in lirt I
ktoomduMk
A vlln Ur tilt
c
It
l\n i:- or}! ;• *•■
isi Hum ^mt iT
■ 111
;t,;/i'.-'j,T(.- 'fiitifi' fl
:lnir«.' ■( tl*IU"
-4 Stofi Press can still produce
Ihe standard news^per type
lormat.
The business user may find the EasiGraph section
invaluable. This is designed to allow you to present
information as line or bar graphs or pie charts just by typing
in the data values. flR
9This preview is based on a pre-production version of
the program. Stop Press is due out from AMS (0925
413501) in mid-November, price £49.99, mouse extra.
We hope to present a full review next month.
A Stop Press's ability to
produce graphs easily eoM tte
invaluable tor Ihe business Lea.
Tills graptt was produced in
minutes using the £aa-Graph
iBCility.
8000 PLUS 15
Rational Solutions is pleased to announce the launch of
AtLast Plus
The new enhanced version of their best-selling database program AtLast for the Amstrad PCW computers and
CPC6128, also known as The Database Manager.
This Database application generator achieved its fame from its unique and unrivalled combination of
exceptional versatility, speed, ease of use and low low price. But don't take our word for it
- listen to what the reviewers said:
"Superb value for money and hard to pick holes in"
"Powerful features. . . as clever as the user makes it"
"Many attractive features . . . "rts search features are particularly valuable"
- 8000 Plus
- Amstrad Professional Computing
- Computing Witti The Amstrad PCW
But some of you weren't satisfied. You wanted even more features than were already packed into the program and
improvements in the manual and user interface. We listened to you and now we are proud to recognise the
contributions our users have made to the design of AtLast Plus
So now we thank you. All existing users of AtLast are offered AtLast Plus at half price. Send the front
page of your old manual, your serial number and £19,95 to Ralionaf Solutions at the address below and we
will send you AtLast Plus
* FEATURES *
* Data Capacity and Economy
Can use all the available space on your disc up to maximum
of 32,000 records or 4Mb per file. 10 files per database, 20
field arrays per record, 99 elements per field array, up to 79
characters per element. Records of 2000 characters are
handled with ease.
Unused data space is not saved to disc and therefore use of
disc space is optimised. Typically three times as many names
and addresses can be kept on a floppy as on a fixed format
system. Wilt operate trappily on a single floppy machine PC or
a hard disc if you have one
* Semi - relational
Records can be related between files so that you can switch
from one record to a related record in a few key -strokes.
' Report and screen layouts
All screen layouts and report forms are user-definable using a
built-in mini-word-processor and you can have as many as
you nice for each file. Examples are data entry screens,
browsing screens, columnar listings, labels, letters. Any data
item (field element) can be positioned anywhere and mixed
with explanatory text as desired. Simple 'default' forms are
created automatically for each file.
* Reports
Data can be exported via ASCII files in any layout desired
(e.g. for mail-merge via virtually any word-processor that has
a mail-merge ability).
Listings can incorporate'head" and "tail" sections, with field
totals, if desired.
Listing parameters can be re-used for successive listings,
changing only those that need to be changed.
* Data Entry
Data can be entered and individual fields edited using full on-
screen control, passing up or down through fields at will. Data
entry forms will scroll up or down on screen as required.
All data is validated on entry according to its type.
An integrated environment means that you can search to see
if a record is already tfiere, using a selection filter if you wish,
before adding, editing or deleting it. Index files are automati-
cally updated without your even noticing.
* Indexing/Sorting
Up to 5 index files for any data file, each ordered on up to
three levels (data items) with entries up to 30 characters.
Uses state-of-the-art " B-trees" buffered for almost instan-
taneous access. No tedious sorting require d.
Mixed case fields give true alphabetic ordering - no need to
use upper case only.
Any index can be used for either listing or browsing order or
for searching for individual records.
* Selecting
Selection conditions can be imposed on any field or combin-
ation of fields when listing using Equal To, Not Equal To,
Before, Equal or Before, After, Equal or After, Contains
(substring) or Does not contain, Selection conditions can
now be used whin browsing or searching for individual
records
* Field Types
A versatile range of 9 field types is available. Types include
date (0-9999AD), time (HH:M!vl:SS), automatic serial num-
bers and pre-defined lists.
* Data Security
Any file can be protected from editing, adding to or deleting or
any combination of these.
* Data Re-organisation
Data definitions can be edited without having to re-type data.
In most cases, this is handled automatically.
* Manual
A new manual to make things easier for beginners.
* Menus
Menu-driven throughout, mostly requiring single key re-
sponses for ease of use. No programming lanquage to learn.
Computers PCW8256, PCW8512, PCW9512, and CPC6128
Price £39.95 inc VAT from all good dealers or order direct
(no postage charge for UK or Europe) From: y \
RATIONAL SOLUTIONS LTD
9 Rosehill Road, London SW18 2NY. Tel: 01-874 6244
W« n«eded ev%n more space to show
you all that's now In the
Amstrad markotplaco
-so wo'vo moved to ..
The Great Hall
Alexandra Palace
Wood Green, London
here!
K-
10am - 6pm Thursday, January 28
10am - 6pm Friday, January 29
10am - 4pm Saturday, January 30
This is YOUR chance to
try out for yourself the
new Amstrad portable
- the machine the
press is raving about!
it's so e^sy to ^t to the show - by cat,
i^, underground or bos. Alexandra
Palace has its awn British JTaiJ statioot
whisking visitors to And from Kind's
Cross in just itSne minti/es. And there's
t free bos service shattling between
^adon and show every IG minates.
If you're travelling by ro^d the show is
Cioly IS minute away 6vm Junction 25
on the M25 - and all car paiMag is
tree.
Advance ticket order
Please supply
D Adult tickets at £2 (saveEl) £ ..
a Under- 163 tickets at £Usave£l) £ ,
Total £_
D Cheque enclosed made jrayable 10
Database Pubhcaiions Ltd
.COMPUTER.
The Great Hall
lUexandra Palace, Alexatidta Paric
Wood Green, London NZZ
January 2S-3D
Post to: Anutiad Show Ticket,
Europa Bouae, 68 Chester JHoad,
Baxel Grove, Stockpert SKT SNY.
I! Please debit my credit card account
D Access ' Visa
Name
Address..
Cut the q[ueues and
save £1 per head -
with this advance
ticket order form
..Signed .
Admission at door:
13 (ndalts),
£Z (aitder ISs)
Advucff tlchet o^e» mutt
b« received by We<tne4d4y,
JanuATV Z0» 19BS
PHONE ORDERS: Rinir Show Hotline: 061 -4a0 Olll
PRESTEL ORDERS: KEY '89, THEN 61456B383
MICROLINK ORDERS: MAILBOX IZJARGOOl
Please quote ctedil card number and full address +A212 _
Amstrad is B trade mark ofAmslisd PLC
MCW ! 1/87(1)
NTfLLIGENCE
CAN YOUR PClfl
mer note
':- those nty diveiieis ■■■jho
hnoft iiille oi counitu
Fjiation !or
>li'ici3i insem-nation Bandi
ii aSiiul m conuefsalion al ,
your peril
Here's a scerario which many PCW users will find all
too familiar You are sitting at your keyboard doing a
spot of databasing when you decide to print out
some of your data. You go through a long series of menus to
set the printer up, and finally the program asks you to type in
the name of the file to print. In your haste you type
RESLUTS.DAT instead of RESULTS.DAT.
Whirr, whirr, the program solemnly reports that it couldn't
find a file called RESLUTS.DAT and you have to go through
the whole process again from scratch. "Why," you ask not
unreasonably, "couldn't the stupid program have realised
what I meant? It's obvious."
It is indeed obvious, and this is one reason why so many
newcomers find computers impossible to deal with.
Computers take everything so literally. But all that could
soon change thanks to the exciting developments in the area
of Artiftciat Intelligence, or 'Al' as it is called for short.
Anybody who has tried to write a program in BASIC even
to do something relatively simple will know that it is harder
than it looks. Writing software which appears to show
common sense is extraordinarily hard, mainly because
humans unconsciously use a vast amount of experience and
background knowledge when making a decision. To Ihe
PCW, RESLUTS and RESULTS are both just collections of
letters - it can't tell that RESULTS is a proper English word
and therefore what you really mean.
In general, the kinds of programs that Al practitioners are
trying to write are ones to emulate the various human
faculties. Programs to understand English (written or
spoken), to recognise objects in a photograph, to plan
courses of action and to learn by trial and enar are all under
development. As yet, the science fiction human-like robot is
still a good 25 years away.
However, one area of A I that is already with us and
providing tangible benefits is the so-called 'Expert System'.
Expert Systems are computer programs which act as
What is intelligence?
One of Ihe mosl Interesting ttilngs about
artificial Intelligence is lh« phi lu soph leal arxl
ettilcal Implications Iwfiind It. lUany p«opl«
(tspecially religious cmnntentators) argue itut
It Is Impossible by definition lor a machine to
be inlelligeni because it has no sout'. Tfte
soul Is taken to be an Indefinable quality (hat
tiumans have.
There i» a Ismous yardstick cailett tlw
Turlttg Test' (proposed by Ihe English
mtlheiratlclan Alan Turing) to gauge whether
8 computer Is Intelligent or not. Sit someone
down at a keyboard connected to something
in ano^er room, and let them type questkins
In and read replies on the screen. II the persort
cannot tell whether II is a computer or a
human thai Is responding, then the computer
(If It Is in lad a computer) is intelligent
In other words. It a computer a els
tnlelllgently tor atl practical purposes then
why not call it inlelligent? This isn't a bad
approach - alter all, when you go to the doctor
do you ask him whal methods he was laughl
at medical school belore acc^tirtg his
opinton?
There are a couple of ethical points
arising. How will all Ihe doctors feel about
being replaced by computers? Do patients
trust computers? And what happens 11 a
computer makes an wrong diagnosis - do you
sue Ihe computer owner, the program
distributor, the originat programrrwr or the
human etp%n whose opinions were used as
lh« basis lor ihe program? All good stuff lor
family arguments.
3
Artificial Intelligence
is the buzzphrase of
the moment, but can
computers really think
for themselves? Ben
Taylor investigates
two PCW Al
programs and their
background.
advisers or experts in specific areas. One very common
example is an expert system to diagnose medical complaints
- tell it your symptoms and the program tells you what is
wrong with you, applying the expertise of a doctor.
With the release of two Expert Systems - Wise One from
Swailowsoft and ExpertSB from Prospec - the potential of Al
has arrived on the humble PCW.
Ex|>ert Systems
The first thing you have to realise is that computers are just
a bunch of wires and plastic and can't think creatively on
their own. The purpose of the expert system program is to
allow you to tell the computer how to make sensible
decisions.
Properly speaking (you ought to learn a little pedantry; it
makes a great put-down to bores who ask awkward
questions when you casually mention your artificially
intelligent computer) the two programs reviewed here are
expert system 'shells'. This means that they are empty
frameworks waiting for you to put knowledge into them - it
isn't until you have done this and got the PCW answering
questions about your tax affairs that you have an expert
system as such.
You can only get out of a computer what you put into it. If
you yourself know nothing whatsoever about animal
INTELLIGENCE
husbandry you can't expect to be able to write an expert
system to advise yourself on how to breed llamas. In tact, to
go furttier ttian ttiat, in most circumstances an expert system
vtHcb you set up yourself will be of little use to you
personally because by definition you must know everything it
knows.
So why are expert systems useful at all? Well, the idea is
that they are used by someone other than the person wtio
set them up. Take an expen who knows everything there is
to know about the rules for claiming sooial security benefits:
suppose you ask him to explain the rules he uses when he
assesses a claim and you then put those rules into an expert
system.
A typical rule might be something like: 'IF the ctaimant's
assets are over E2,000 THEN don't allow any supplementary
benefit', or 'IF the claimant wants any money THEN refuse'.
What you now have, in theory, is the assessor's expertise
captured in a program. You could now sell this program to
various self-help organisations around the country. People
who go to these agencies tor help would then run their
personal details through the expert system and get a quick
preliminary decision on how much benefit they can claim. In
this way the assessor's knowledge - which is highly skilled
and scarce - has become widely available.
This is why people are getting excited about expert
systems.
WISE ONE
£34.95 • Swallowsoft (PO Box 107, Walton-
on-Thames, Surrey KT12 5PQ) • All PCWs
The expert system programs just released for the PCW
conveniently enough give examples ot both the deductive
and inductive methods (see the 'Secret of knowledge' box).
Wise One falls into the deductive category.
For your money you get a spiral bound manual and a
disc packed with examples. Getting an effective expert
system out of Wise One falls into three stages First find an
expert and type all the relevant rules he knows into text files.
Then run the 'Knowledge Builder' program over this file of
rules which checks them for consistency and converts them
into an internal format that is more convenient for the
program to work with.
Once you have got this internal file (called the
'Knowledge Base' because it is a database of knowledge)
you are ready to consult the oracle. Whenever you want
advice on your health (or whatever area it was that you
chose to write the rules about) you run Wise One's
'Consultant' section. This reads the knowledge base and
applies the rules as best it can, eventually coming up with a
conclusion depending on how you reply to the questions.
To write the rule file you will need to have some way of
creating simple ASCII files. LocoScript is not really suitable,
because of the problem of switching between CP/M and
LocoScript but you can get by with the PCWs RPED BASIC
editor. This can only create files up to 200 lines long, and
ideally you ought to use a programmer's editor such as
Protext.
You only need to go through the process of writing the
rules and running the Knowledge Builder once. Once
everything works all you need to have a consultation session
is the Knowledge Base file and the Consultant program.
Doctor, doctor
As an example, here is how you might use Wise One to
build a simple Expert System to diagnose common
children's diseases - measles, chicken pox, mumps, colds
and flu.
All the diseases involve a high temperature. Measles has
red face spots. Chicken Pox white face spots. Mumps no
spots but a swollen throat. A cold and flu have no spots, but
flu is accompanied by a fever (say over 100°F) whereas with
a cold the temperature is from normal up to 1 00.
In fact, you have to make up two separate files which
Wise One uses to get its rules. One contains all the
questions that need to be asked as the program runs, and
the other contains the rules which work on the answers -
these are called the 'element' and 'rule" files respectively
(one of Wise One's faults is getting carried away giving
important sounding names to everything it does).
Secret of knowledge
Tfwrt are two kinds of expert system. With
one kiml you work out wlial rules you itse lo
solve a probtent, type tltem into a file and let
the experi system apply the mles In the same
way you wrould.
The second kind is more amblllous.
Instead ot typing In the niles thai you have
workeiJ oirt, you type in a set of examples. For
Instance, if you happen to know that the
symptoms of measies are a high temperature
and red spots, and tor chicken pox are white
spots (and so on), you just type in a list of tDe
symptoms snd diagnoses. Tlw expen system
then takes the examples and tries to work out
for Itself a pattern ot what symptoms go with
which disuses.
These two approaches are respectively
'deduction' and 'induction'. The deductive
expert system takes the di^ases it knows
atwut, deduces what the symptoms ought to
be and checks them against the actual
symptoms until a match Is found. Ttie
inductive system takes the known symptoms
and tries to wortt out the diagnosis from past
experience.
el em
colour of spots'
text
colour of the spots'
valo
red; white'
ques
Vhat Is the'
t
A An example 'elemerrt ' for Wise Ore
Extracts from the two tiles are shown in
the printouts. You can see that in the rule file,
the English is a little stilted but the logic is
pretty clear and simple to write, in the
element file the language is much more
complex, and unnecessarily so. Essentially
t>LUSES
.■ Has the necessary power lo be genuinely
useful
■ Can cope wilfi elementary arltttmetic
■ You can set up screens o< help leil for the
iiaef
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ Unnecessarily obscure way of wrWng the
rules
■ Documentation is loo dry and academic
PERFORtiflANCE
DOCUMENTATIOM
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
each chunk sets up something the system needs to know
about (like the child's temperature), then defines how the
user should be asked. For example, the 'colour of spots'
entry makes the program print on the screen "What is the
colour of the spots?" and only take red or white for an
answer.
Once these definitions have been checked by Wise One.
you can get going with the consultation. This is
stralghtf onward. The idea is that someone totally unskilled
with computers can just sit down and answer a string of
questions and be presented with an answer.
Wise One has a range of special rules to do things like
print out helpful information at strategic points, and to make
sure that the questions are asked in the right order. For
instance, there is no point asking what colour the spots are
before asking whether there are spots there at all. You can
even store screenfuls of text in files on disc and pause to
display the whole file in the middle of a consultation.
Wise One's rules are really a mini programming
language You can arrange for simple arithmetic
comparisons to be done, which is very useful. For example,
if today's temperature is more than yesterday's, then do
something special.
The user is allowed to ask 'Why?' whenever Wise One
asks a question, just as you might ask your GP why he
wanted you to stand on your head. This prints out the
current rule It is thinking about with details of why that rule is
being used.
Without doubt Wise One is a powerful expert system
shell. It has a few faults. Its way of writing rules in is at times
unnatural and overcomplicated; you can't include quote
marks in text messages you want to display; simple mistakes
can result in a frightening avalanche of error messages: the
manual takes a delight in referring you to other pages {'see
section 4,3.2' etc) and in introducing jargon names as often
as it can. You will need to have a programmer's instinct to
get the best from Wise One.
EXPERT86
E23.45 • Prospec (PO Box 28, Beeston,
Nottingham NG9 1PH) • All PCWs
Whereas Wise One is a deductive expert system shell.
Experts 6 is inductive - it tries to work out its own way of
getting the answer from a set of examples,
Prospec will sell you Expert86 for only £4.00 if you don't
need the manual - the disc contains several large
documentation files anyway. Having said which, the manual
is well written and definitely worth having unless you are
really confident of your abilities.
This 'inductive' business sounds great, doesn't it? Just
throw a load of facts at the system and it works out the rules
tor itself. Of course life isn't that easy, and it has to be said
that although Expert86 is much easier to use than Wise One
it is ultimately not as powerful.
To run the doctor example through Expert86. you need a
PLUSES
■ Doesn't need explicitly written reasoning
rules
■ Clear documentallon with enamples
■ Vou can an'ange tor explanations to be
given in natural English
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ You can'l control the order questions are
asked
■ No way to handte numbers/arithmetic
■ hleed to recompile the whole system for
each run
PERFORf^ANCE
DOCUMENTATION
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
different approach. Again you need to create a text file of the
questions to be asked when the program wants to find out
the child's temperature and so on.
However, where Wise One needed a rule file, Expert86
wants a 'training set". This is a file containing as many
examples of diagnoses as you can think of. For the system
to be infallible you need to type in every possible example it
could ever come across, which is sometimes possible in
small applications. It you generalise and go for a compact
training set the system will work fine in most cases, but
sometimes will not be able to find an answer. In the example
shown, if a child had red spots in the throat there is no
known diagnosis.
An asterisk in the training set means 'don't care'. This is
useful if a symptom doesn't affect a particular disease. For
example, you aren't bothered what temperature the child has
for chicken pox because it can be high or normal depending
on what stage the disease is at.
The tree of wisdom
When you run Expert86 it looks over your training set and
works out its decision process. It composes a decision tree
which it writes to a file in English form, and it is often
interesting to read this. If one symptom is actually totally
irrelevant in the entire diagnosis {suppose you had set up a
column tor the colour of the patient's eyes) you will see that
even though you religiously typed it into the training set file it
doesn't appear in the decision tree. This tells you, the
system designer, a lot about the problem and can clarify
your own thinking.
<r^^.
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'Accountant's Guide' is a separate booklet provided especially for users
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l>atastore will fully utilise the facilities of yonr computer.
A" Menu driven with prompts
^ Full tutorial for begitiners
* Autmnatif cakuUtions on entry (useful for VAT, etc.)
"if Full mathematics \-\ ^ — ^ X^ /, average)
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^ Search iiti anv field or any combination of fields for anything
•k Optional embedded ftrme and conditional search facility
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Porhaps the only reasonable criiicism of the Amstrad PCW might be the
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"••lELIGENCE
ExpertS6 automatically runs the consultation session
after it tias worked out its decision tree. This is a
conventional question and answer session ending in some
result (or the program giving up!).
The user can ask 'Wtiy?' at any stage, when Experl86
parrots back some text which you defined in the question
99-100
face
red
■
neasles
1004
lace
red
•
neaeles
99-100
100+
1
no_spots
no.spots
face
no_spots
no_spots
white
throat
throat
>
auops
nuaps
chlcken_poK
99-100
100+
nQ_spots
no.spots
no .spots
no .spots
yes
yes
no.swelltng
no„BHBlllng
coimon.cold
flu
temperature
position of spob
akntvltf^
lltDdied nose
MMlUng
diagnosis
A Iraining set' lor EipertB6, listing symplom and
examples
> hilt li tkf child't tMHrakm
mil
Mlk it lU diiU's tMvoitvt
: ini «hiU sptts iMii iiUtrnl Uitnti if^C '
^t* ut m )Hti. ml citgw trf U>f
AA
>ijenS6 can be made to seeni naluial
file. This sounds unsophisticated, but if used carefully you
can engineer sonne almost natural English conversations.
Expertee has a good manual which explains well the
basic principles and gives good examples. However, there
are some problems. There is no way to do any arithmetic
{eg, to say some result is true if one value is twice another
one}. You can use numbers if you are crafty in the way you
phrase questions: when asking the child's temperature you
can't ask for a numl^er, you have to allow a range of
answers like 'normal', '99-100'. '100+'.
A major problem in ExpertSB is that there is no way to
force a specific order of questioning. If you were writing a tax
adviser you might lind yourself being asked how much your
spouse earned before being asked whether you wanted to
be separately assessed or not. In practice this means that
Expert86 is not suitable for situations where you want to be
able to follow specific lines of questioning depending on
replies to earlier questions, which to be honest covers quite
a lot of applications.
S^SSb
mms^i
Bcpert System
!,
Do it yourself
"So," you say to yourself, 'Ihat's what expert system shells
are then. You tell them everything they need to know and
they just do it. What's so hard about that?"
A fair comment really. Expert system shells are not
inherently all that complex. It's the rules you put in them that
count. You might be interested in knowing a little more about
the internals of how the shell works out what the rules mean
and how it applies them - you can even have a go at writing
your own expert system shell
Many people will tell you that to write an 'artificial
intelligence' program like this you need to spend a fortune
on an exotic programming language. This isn't true. Even
with your humble PCW BASIC you can get a long way.
The first thing you should do is go out and buy a book
called Build Your Own Expert System by Chris Naylor. This
costs £11.95 and is published by Sigma Press -any
bookshop should be able to order it for you, or you could ring
Sigma on 0625 531035, tt's an excellent book which works
up from explaining what expert systems are to printing
complete program listings in BASIC. Ostensibly it is angled
at Amstrad PC owners, but in practice all the examples will
run on PCW BASIC too.
Knowledge harvesting
hlow wetl an experl system performs depertds
on flow well thought out and correct tfte niles
are
What ltap()«ns H you want to wrtts an
expen system to advis« attout nuclear reactor
design, or some other subfecl tfial you don't
know anytKing atxHil? How do you know wfwt
rules to specify? You fiave 1o go and find a
tame expert, twrrow a couple of hours of his
time and ask him lo explain how Ine solves
problems.
This process is quainUy known as
'Knowledge Hanesling', It Is the nnost
ifflportanf part of boitding an experl system,
and a grasp of human psychology comes In
very handy. The expert probably makes a lot
of unspoken assumptions that aren't obvious
eftl^er to you or to the computer. Yoo as the
questioner have got to make sure thai
absolutely every relevant pan of the reasoning
process has been unearthet) and explained In
a specific enough way for you lo be able to
write down a simple oile tor K,
It's written in a friendly and witty style that should appeal
to 8000 Plus readers. ("There are two major faults
possessed by most existing expert systems; that you,
personally, don't understand how they work: and that you,
personally, haven't got one. These faults can. In extreme
cases, be quite serious."} Nevertheless there is a lot of hard
fact in the book, including a quick statistics course for the
keener reader.
'Real' Al
For the really dedicated artificial intelligence programming
fan, the pleasure ot programming in BASIC may pall after a
while. Most programming examples published in the serious
technical press are written in one of two programming
languages, LISP or Prolog.
You can in fact run these languages on the PCW. Hisoft
have recently produced a PCW version of LISP selling at
£49.95 which includes a LISP tutorial tiook normally selling
for £13 by itself. Although a copy was not available to review
Hisoft have a track record of good PCW versions of most
programming languages, so it's well worth a chance.
On the Prolog front, the best value-for-money package
seems to tie Micro Prolog at £74.75. This is available from
Logic Programming Associates (01-871 2016). Don't forget
to tell them it't a PCW you are using or you are liable to get a
version for some poxy foreign machine like an IBM PC.
This is neither the time nor the place for an in-depth
argument about the merits of BASIC vs. LISP vs. Prolog (the
academic journals have been full of such articles for 10
years and there is still no consensus as to a best'
language). Suff k;e it to say that you can write a perfectly
adequate expert system on your PCW using BASIC.
One ot Prolog's strengths is that it is almost a ready -built
expert system shell, and it also has plenty of features for
people who want to write programs to understand written
English. As for LISP - well, it is a useful language but it is
probably fair to say that if you haven't used it before (such
as on a university course) and you don't know that you
need it then you probably don't need it.
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Things can get pretty conlusing wtien your disc has got
200 (iles on it, particularly if they are all called
LETTER.MUM, LETTER.DAD and so on. LocoScript
has a clever way of dealing with this problem by splitting the
disc into 8 user groups. These are the neat columns that you
use divide up your documents to make your discs really
organised, each with a TEMPLATE. STD. Using these
groups is second nature to all LocoScribes, but it may
surprise you to learn that the same useful filing system is
available in CP/M.
User groups are like drawers in a filing cabinet. In CP/M
you can keep files in up to 1 6 different groups on the disc
(as opposed to LocoScript's mere 8) - these are rather
confusingly numbered to 15. If you don't tel! CP/M
otherwise everything you do goes into user group 0, so
when you type dir you may have to plough through a vast
directory. Double density discs (9512 discs and 8512 B'
discs) store up to 256 files, so it can get pretty traumatic.
Splitting your files into user groups keeps things neat and
tidy.
Nonnally you are in user group 0. When you first start up
with CP/lifl and if you see an A> prompt this means you are
in effect in group on disc drive A. Type ai :, ia:.1: or
even user i and you will be mysteriously transported into
user group 1 . Remember the colon after all the shorter
versions or you will just get an annoying 'A1 ?' back. Try dir
now and you will see 'No file'.
A The quick way to find if there are files in User Groups other
than Group 0. Use ;;ii' 'k i i i;:kk.s | to find out which groups have
liles in them and how many are in each In this case groups to
3 have a total of 2S files in them.
A moving experience
The first thing to get to grips with is moving files between
different user groups. To do this you have to pull out the
ever faithful PIP. Just as you can use PIP to copy files to a
new disc you can use it to copy the file to a new group on
the same disc and then (if you want to) erase the old
version.
You all know (don't you?) that to copy a file from, say,
disc A to disc B you use
PIP B:=A:SECRET.LET
Well, to copy the file from group of disc A, where you
probably first created it. to group 15 of disc A you would use
the command
FIP A: [G15]=A:SECRET.LET(G0]
Then, assuming you don't want to keep a version in group
too you have to erase the letter from there (make sure you
are in group by typing o : if necessary and then era
CPU PLUS
GROUP
BEHAVIOUR
Alec Rae reassures LocoScript expatriates that
tiney can still organise CP/M files into groups
SECRET. LET) and the operation is complete. You naturally
need the file PIP.COM on your disc or M drive.
In this way, once you have finished a correspondence
with somebody you can shuffle those files out of the way into
an obscure group number. You can get at them if you need
to refer back, but they won't get in the way of your daily
operations.
The parallels between LocoScript's user groups and
CP/M's are no coincidence, for they are in fact exactly the
same thing. If, once you have started CP/M up, you put a
LocoScript disc in the drive you will see what this means;
type 1 : to get to user group 1, dir and all the LocoScript
documents stored in LocoScript group 1 (the second group -
numbering starts from don't forget) are listed.
Doing tlie LocoMotion
PIP'S extra speed in CP/M file handling means that it might
be worthwhile using this method to sort out your LocoScript
discs. You can carry out group movements of LocoScript
files that you normally would do with PIP.
Say you want to move all the tiles in group of a
LocoScript disc into group 7. If you have got more than a few
files this could take a long time in LocoScript with six or more
key presses for every tile you move. But it is easy in CP/M
using PIP with its 'wildcards' - those natty little symbols that
allow you to copy groups of files at once.
In PIP commands, an asterisk stands for any word so
Where have all the
files gone?
What sotnellmes does worry people Is that In
CP/M you can't see where all the tiles are. If
you type dir all you will get shown Is the files
In Ihe user group you are (n, unlike LocoScript
where you can see atl groups at a glance.
You can see all the tiles on a disc but it
takes a little work using DIF). As it is one of
the special functions of DIR you will rteed to
have DIR.COM on Ihe disc or in tl>e M drive.
Then type Dm [tJSSR&ou,]. The computer
thinks tor a moment, prints up 'Scanning...'
and 'Sorting...' and then out come all Ihe files
from all the user groups complete with the
size of the files and a iol of other interesting
detail.
II you have a lot of tiles (more than a
screenful) it thoughtfully stops at the end of
each screen and waits until you press
[RETURN] before continuing. You can use the
usual CP/M trick of pressing [AL'Tj'^P to make
the screen output come out on the printer lor
a permanenl hard copy ot long directory
listings.
If you sitnpty want to a <)uiek check on
what user groups are In use It Is easier to use
the SHOW command (assuming you have
SK0W.COM on the disc or in M drive). By
typing smxi (qsers] you get a list of atl Ihe
groups thai contain files and how many files
there are In each group.
8000 PLUS 25
CPMPLUS
Into Limbo
One ot the weirdest uses of user groups Is
LocoScrlpt's Limbo files. If you edit a tile in
most war($-processors it will aulomattcalty
rename the old copy of tfw file as a back-up
file in case you need to undo the changes -
tdtting HUNCH.LET creates HUNCH.BAK tor
instance.
On the other hand when you edit (or
erase) a file In LocoScrlpt ft seems as il tt ftas
actually disappeared. In tact it is spirited
away Into a semi-existence called Limbo
where it can be called back under certain
circumstances.
Wf^at is actually happening is that wtten
you edit a document the old version is moved
into Umbo. Similarly erased tiies are not
reatly erased but moved into Limbo. Try
worthing in LocoScrtpt with the 'Show Limbo'
option on and see what happens.
Only eight user groups appear to be
available in LocoScrlpt (0 to 7) as the other
eight are used to hold Limbo tiles. User group
8 is used to iiold the Limbo flies for group 0,
group 9 for group 1 and so on.
As the disc tills up LocoScrlpt dumps
these Limbo tiles if it needs to re-use I lie
space. If you took a LocoScrlpt disc that
claimed it had 100k tree and looked at tt in
CP/M you might find it saying ttiat the disc
was full - because of all the user groups from
8 to 15 are full of flies that LocoScrlpt treats
as Limbo tiles but CP/M thinks are ImpoilanI
files.
Using a LocoScrlpt disc to store CP.'M
tiles on will usually mean going through the
user groups from 8 to 1 5 doing HA • . ' to
clear the Limbo files oft.
Hard decisions
you n^y think Ihijvgs ate pfetty
bad with 256 em ries ana
double density floppy disc, but il
you use a hard disc you inay be
laced with 3,000 0( nwe Itles.
Hard discs can slore 30 a more
floppy disc-worth ol data, so
you can s«« how important
crpnising dies imp groups ts.
PIP A: |G7]=A:*.* [GOl movBS all the files in group to
group 7. Or say you want to move every tile which ends in
.LET from group 1 into group 7 of your disc - just type pip
A: (G7i=A:*,LET[Gl] and Off they go.
In the same vi^ay, ? is the wMcard symbol for a single
letter or digit, pip B: [g51=A: document. 00? will move
every file from DOCUMENT.OOI to DOCUr^flENT.OOg to
group 5 on your B drive and leave everything else
untouched.
This is not the only time that it would be worth using
CP/M to viork on a LocoScrlpt disc. Anyone who has tried to
erase a number of files in LocoScript knows what a time
consuming exercise it is. If you happen to want to erase all
files in the same user group lite is simple with CP/M. Just go
Maae lytes Jtta Ittribuies Kuu tiftts Ittcs Attributes
toul liHfocks = I
Ik TdUl Rtcofds = IM ri (s raund = 1*
< \iitiAiu Sir Entries For Ir »e t: W U
Iitrectorif Far trivf ti User 1
Naiit htti Rets Attributes
iShi !i(lU i
iF SM'KJ
s Hw Bytes Decs Attributes
tii - et Tilts Fotmd - E
ir Entries For »rive Ai IS/ E4
Btrectorii ror trio* A; User a
Hue lytes Rees Attributes Hue Bytes Recs Attributes
Press ffiTiniH to Continue |
GQAtS m
II Sir m
A The effecl ot dividing the sheep from the goals This is what you see when you use : ■ : h
I usiiHs ALL : to see all the files on your disc. Each User Group is listed out in handy screenfuls
allowing you plenty of time to see what files are in v^ich group. This is what you would see if
you had transferred all the files starting SHEEP to group t using wildcards.
26 8000 PLUS
to the group in question {use dip to check that you've got
the right one) and type in era ' . * and the job is completed
in seconds. Only the files in that particular user group will be
erased. You must remember however that this really does
erase the files. There is no popping back into Limbo to find
them - unless you have an unerase utility program.
Problems? What problems?
One problem lurks to trap the unwary. If you change your
user group by typing user v. for instance, then the only files
you have access to are those in group 7. You may have all
your work files stored in group - like PIP.COM.
BASIC, COM, a word processor and so on - but because
they are not stored in group 7 you can't get at them without
changing groups back again.
So what do you do? Store PIPCOM in every user group
on the disc? This would be a terrible waste of space, so
fortunately there is a simple way around this. You declare
that all these files that you want to be able to use from any
user group are 'system files'.
Now when you type a command at CP/M's prompt, this is
what happens: suppose the prompt is currently (■A> and you
A The basic tool for moving files from one group to another is
PIP.C0I*4. Here all the files starting SHEEP are being copied
from Group where they were created to Group 1 using
wildcards Then all the files in Group can be erased (if you
wantj to complete the transfer.
type BASTc [RETURN]. CP/M looks at all the files stored in
group 7 of drive A for BASIC.COM. If it doesn't find il, it
would normally reply 'BASIC?' . However, CP/M will also
look through all the system files on the disc too. so if
BASIC.COM is a system file then it will be found and run
regardless of what group it is in.
You will need the file SET.COM on your working disc (it
can be found on the CP/M master disc). To make the file
BASIC.COM a system file just type
.■SET BASIC.COM [SYS]
and now whenever you type BASIC the familiar Mallard
welcome pops up, no matter what group you are working in
at the time.
When you type DIR now BASIC won't show up, except
bracketed under the obscure message "SYSTEM FILE{S)
EXIST". To list the system files out, type dirsys, which will
also thoughtfully tell you "NON-SYSTEM FILE{S) EXIST' in
case you didn't know. To convert a system file back to a
normal file you would type ,'3ET basic. com [diri ,
System files however have their own little problemette.
As well as not showing on the normal directory, system tiles
create don't behave normally when it comes to PiPping, PIP
won't copy system files unless you add the option [R] as in
PIP M:=A:BASIC.C0M[R1. OT
PC W 8256/8512/9512
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SOFTWARE & HARDWARE SUPPLIERS.
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SOFTWARE FOR PCW & PCW 8512
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Supercaic 2
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R S232CENTRONIC$
INTERFACE for PCW 8256
E67.00
G PR 2000 DAISYWHEEL PRINTER
£228.00 INC VAT & DELIVERY
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COMPUTER FURNITURE
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I Crampton CR1 10 £1 09.00 Compact Desk/Monitor Arm
CramptonCRIOS E110,OOCompactWorkStation
Crompton CR140 £85.00 Printer Stand
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CASE IN POINT
T
he first encounter witti my new PCW was traumatic. I
had experimented with various home computers with
the aim ot easing the burden of repetitive tasks in my
dental practice. I quickly realised ttiat a proper grown up'
computer was required. Unlike many people I bought a PCW
tBcause I wanted a business mactiine rather than a word
processor.
Experiments with unsophisticated computers had not
prepared me for what was to (ollow. I launched into the
CP/M manual with all the enthusiasm of a man facing Ns
lirst vindaloo and expecting to enjoy it. My first taste of CP/M
came as a blow. I understood that to move a tile you have to
use PIP, but what is a tile, why would 1 want to move it, and
who's PIP anyway? I had to call for the cavalry. I am in the
torljnate position of having several friends who are either
enttiusiastic amateurs or professionals in the computer world
and they nursed me through my technological adolescence.
"You need programs to run other programs ". one explained.
This was a new concept to me. but the fog began to clear
and I soon found myself becoming another enthusiastic
amateur discovering the delights and frustrations o( 'real'
computers.
When I was about to enter dental school my own dentist
warred me "most of your time in dental practice is spent
writing letters and filling in forms. Any work you do on
people's teeth is purely incidental!" There is truth in this. We
write recall letters, account letters and reminder letters; we
send referral letters to consultants; we give out leaflets with
instructions tor patients or messages about dental health.
Having broken the LocoScript pain barrier I soon found that
the prospect of LWWP (life without word processing) was
intolerable.
The human factor
Clearly the PCW would be a valuable tool in all this
administration. The dental practice project was under way.
and I enlisted the help of a friend who is a computer systems
project manager With a professional at work we began to
discuss not how to program a computer but the concept ot a
system in dental practice.
FILLING GAPS
In which dentist Andrew Shelley embarks on the
long haul to marketing his brainwave
Dental practice management systems have been around
for some time now and so we had the advantage of a critical
appraisal of their achievements. Comprehensive and
expensive systems have not provided the panacea that
many expected Dentists found their systems complex and
cumbersome to use. and some abandoned their newly
acquired computers to return to the tried, tested and reliabte
manual methods.
I know of a dental practice that uses a dental
management system so complex that only the receptionist,
who has responsibility for it, is capable of using it. If she is
on holiday, disaster strikes. Not even the Dentist knows the
ins and outs of the system. One of our goals therefore, was
to develop a system that was quick to use by all staff,
including the Dentist.
A major feature of existing systems is dental record
keeping. At first sight this seems eminently sensible.
Immediate access to records and the opportunity to prepare
instant statistics are convincing charms to woo the unwary.
However, I had expe hence of computerised records from
working at another practice and had several objections. The
most notable incident was the morning when we arrived to
find that the hard disc drive no longer held the records which
a secretary had spent
several weeks typing
in. Also there were
four terminals to the
system which made it
very expensive
indeed. It could never
have been cost
effective.
Typing records into
a computer system
when you have four
patients in the waiting
room, all with
toothache requiring
immediate attention,
is a frustrating
experience.
Handwritten dental
records have become
refined with many
8000 PLUS 29
CASE IN POINT
The good and the bad
The Una I step in the production of our system
was the user guide, and as I had taken a
relatively minor role in the actual
programming it fell to me to produce this.
I fett that t)eing a non-expen was an
advantage in producing a cfear, readable, and
jargon free user guide. My starting point was
the Amstrad PCW manual. You can learn a
great deal (rom seeing something done badly.
As a good example I took the SuperCalc user
guide, a mode) of ctear explanalion. You don't
expect this from tlie Americans - as a general
rule I would expect to find 'switcti on ttie
computer' roughly translated as 'As of the
initial moment of titT» one should find oneself
in an ongoing pressing the power button
situation in order to engage the on mode'. This
is not the case and it's a credit to Sorclm that
they have managed to restrain themselves so
admirably.
I booked a week off work to write the user
guide and )t took me four months, t began to
sympathise with the authors of the PCW
guitie. It Is a very delicate balance to provide a
full explanation without over-complicating the
situation and at the same time avoid
patronising the reader. I was, however, very
pleased with the result. It included a guide for
the first time computer user, an example, a
reference section and a glossary.
shortfiand symbols over the years and many find tfiat
manual records are much faster than their computerised
counterparts. X-rays and referral letters often fomi part of a
dental record, so it would therefore be necessary to keep a
manual file in any case. Far better, in my view, to keep them
all In one place.
Those who expected that their computer would ensure
they would never lose a record again have been
disappointed. We all have our tales about computer cock-
ups; mine concerns a well known domestic appliance
manufacturer who denied our existence. What had
happened was that our name had been spelt wrongly on the
database and so could not be found.
Dental appointment systems have been tried. The
difficulty with this is that it is only possible to see a few hours
of appointments at a time on a monitor. Compare this with
the handwritten version where it is possible to see a whole
week at once - you can assess at a glance how busy ttie
forthcoming week is and where the free appointments are.
Money is the root
If the practical considerations of bookings and records
systems in a dental practice make computerisation tricky.
Dentists' fees and patients' charges are a different matter.
Dentists are paid according to the items of treatment that are
carried out and there are some two hundred different items
of NHS treatment carrying different fees. However, it is not
simply a matter of totting up the fees. For example, the fees
for a combination of items can be different from their simple
sum.
Some fees vary according to the teeth which are
involved, or maximums may apply to groups of items. Having
worked that out the patient may have to pay the first E1 7 or
their treatment and 40% of the remainder. However, some
items are free of charge and others have their own lee which
has to be added separately. In short the NHS dental system
Are you a case?
Has your PCW revolutionised your fife?
Traumatlsed It? 'Case In Point' Is a regular
feature of of 8000 Plus and we are looking tor
readers with interesting enperiences to relate.
It you use your PCW tor something more than
just LocoScript, why no! share your thoughts
with a waiting world?
Try to keep things light but specific with a
smatterfng of hard facts about the packages
you use. II you've had a bad lime with some
software don't be afraid to sound off - you
could be saving other reader weeks ol agony.
We are looking for articles of not more
than 2000 words, for which we will pay our
usual generous rates, Wriie to Case in Point,
8000 Plus, 4 Queen Stmt, Bath BAi lEJ.
is full of idiosyncrasies, in addition to which the fees and
charges can change twice a year. In my view this is an area
where a computer can really prove invaluable. It would no
longer be necessary to look up fees or perform complex
arithmetic, it would simply be a matter of telling the computer
what treatment had been carried out and leave the rest to
the system.
The National Health Service documentation is another
area where a computer system could show its worth. There
is a form called an FP1 7. the b§te noire of dental practice
Mention FP17 to a dentist and you may observe a far away
look come over him as he recalls hours of frustrating wasted
time filling in and checking the dreaded form'. It is, in fact
the form that your dental practice asks you to sign whenever
you have treatment under the NHS. On the reverse of this
form the dentist enters all the treatment which has been
carried out for the patient and submits it to the powers that
be for payment. This can be a mammoth task in some
cases. Whilst a computer holds the patient's details it is quite
possible to feed one of these forms into the printer of a PCW
and watch in astonishment as it completes in seconds what
was previously achieved in up to an hour.
It nee<l not stop there, however, the same details can tje
used to print out a range of useful documentation. For
example, estimates of costs for patients, explanatory
breakdowns of charges, statements, and with little extra
input, recall letters and enquiries to the NHS about
underpayment of fees.
All this can be achieved with a single PCW computer. We
reached the conclusion, therefore, that a system running in a
complementary role to conventional record keeping and
appointment systems would provide a truly effective and
economical solution. We set about developing such a
system.
Writing the system in our spare time took us about 1 2
months. During that time we began to realise that we were
creating a high standard professional package that would be
useful to other dental practitioners and thus have
commercial possibilities.
The practical problems of producing the manual and
packaging then came to bear. There were many screens
included in the guide which added to the problems. We
considered options such as renting an Apple Macintosh and
a laser printer, but ultimately we used a combination of
PCW, LocoScript, photo-reduction and ordinary litho printing.
The whole thing was bound in a screen printed ring binder to
produce a really professional result.
Parting shot
My staff and I have now been using our system for some
months with great success. Our newly formed company,
'Practice Systems Limited', has started to market the
software as Fee Manager' and the first users seem to be
delighted with their new systems. We took a great deal of
trouble to try to ensure that the system is easily used by all
members of staff by using conventional notation and
abbreviations to enter treatment details.
Despite the combined computer and dental expertise of
our partnership, marketing people tell us that simply building
a better mousetrap does not guarantee cleaning up the
mousetrap market. In other words, just because our software
is the greatest thing since painless extractions it doesn't
automatically lead to success. Sales and marketing are vital,
and this is one of the most exciting and challenging aspects
of a new business,
We believe that it is no longer good enough to
indiscriminately throw botched databases at dental practices
and hope that they will change to accommodate them. We
believe in pragmatic computing. If it doesn't save you
time, money or trouble then it's not worth having 1 WW
30 8000 PLUS
^ oi3 software ) — ^
HOTSHOT 1.2
HOTSHOT •!» In rh«b«ck{|roundolyourl.oc(wcrlptwordproc*Mor ready to
bt c(ll»d up at th«pr«*s of • k«y. It do««n't mtttar what you arc dolns In
LocoMript, HOTSHOT la atwaya waiting lor you.
Enry (itra naacM to maka your worMng Ufa affkrianl.
You'rg writing a Itctar and naad a VAT prlca, uaa HOTSHOT'a aahiirlator.
Yau'r« using a speadshavt and n«od to maka some noise, use HOTSHOT'a
notipid. Yoj need the address of the person you're writing to. uaa
HOTSHOT'a addreea book btkI unique 'COF^' tu notion, the address drops
lots ta Marjnu'ra wrttinq. You ne«d lo ramind youraalf of aomathing iatar on,
UM HOTShtoT'a Ibnar/ alarm olook. You naad to siza your document, uaa
HOTSHCfT'ai
AHheugh auoh paekagaa have baan ralaaaad bafora, HOTSHOFa
strd la that K oan ba aooaaaad ham wtthbi L oooaoflpt.
24 hour titnar and itann ckick
•ophiaicaied calculator
•lactronlc diary lo keep track of Important evsnta
■ddraas tMok wtih alphabetic sort
rwte pad tuilti unique Indax martaere
locoaerlpt woid counter, klad for ajttxtrs
•ncoda/decode Locoadpt IHea, paaawordpreventaunauthoriaadaocaaa
Gompaifala witfi Locoacrlpt 1^ br iha PCW 8256/8512
£24.95
Not so much a
LIGHTNING BASIC EXTENSION
... more a way of life
704- Iwywortte end 100% PCW eompsUbftlty, th* ulUmala PCW
Basic •xtensloi!.
. all functions use simple S^lc keywords, no need for Calte or Pokes
, contains all the relevant functions of 'Al you ever...' plus many raw
fsaturee In an ideal environment for tfie Basic programmer
. tndudes Sprit* and Icon commarxJs tor brilliant graphic output
. medium artd high raaolutlon graphic a - polnls, lines, circto, flits
. extra editing facilties, varfabbTlat, search etc.
. ful A4 screen dumps to dot matrix printar
. UDQ's and new cftaracter sets
. Instant acraen recall
New Basic keyword* Includa:
icon Craeie/ Place/ Move, Sprite Crsate/Pteca/Mova, Time Set/flaad, User,
Vlitt, Window, Watt, Draw/Undraw, Piot/Unpioi, Ltne/Unline Ftash, D«ek,
Ooke, Disc Save/Load, Screen Dump/Save/ Load, Cursor Anywhere, Grtt>hlcs
High; Mad urn /Print. Kaya, Beep, Yodel, Getksy. Question. Word address.
Jugglt char aat, Printar Condanaa/Echo/TeKt/Raaat, F^arsa video. Ivlemory
US/Sove and many more,
'Lightning Basic' Is compatible with PCW 8256/85&9S12 £24.95
BRIDGE PLAYER 2000
WITH TUTOR
. This is the Bridpe Player for tioth iha eiip«rt and t>eglnner, with versatile
. tHddng that aeta a really high standard. maKhed by p o warfal oard play.
. Generstes rartdom hande and elkma proper tNddng In Ihe ACOL aystam,
using Stayman, Blackwood and a choice of HiyJmmp convention.
. irvta^ Tulorlal eectkut witti 20 sat tisnds, advice and exptanatkin.
. Uiishre range ol opdona and compreheneiva intormatkn dteplaya.
'Tha program is vary wall thought through amf aervea a dui^ tuncthn. Fmt
otalt. it you want to mtm haw toplaf (fte/i you can do so oaeily in Tutor moda,
and sacondy, if you can piay but cant find thm« otfwm lo play with than tiara'a
wur cttanee lo Map ycur hand In iwfng Playar moda.
Iha Tutor taxhae you Iha aam« as you playoy aneuring thai you don't maka
wrong mofae. A t tn» and oltha gamayou gatatuti paga of taxt anghfsng tba
wt\om gama, explaining iha bidang procosa and soquanca ol play, togalhar
»iilh an analysis ol undarlying fncfct andpossitpla allarnativa ways to outflank
your opponanK.
In Iha Playar mode thara'a a wida rang* of raaiart and go back ona mo\/»
Mthna vrnkh ensure you oan laam aomalhing naw aaoh tima.
Iha display la ftrra, the tablo s/K in the middle and you play your round vdth
lota of mto about the teat trick and the scora dapleyad around S>a edge of the
•craen.
This la a vary thoughtful way to gat tha moat out of Bridge on tita
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PROTEXT
LEHER OF
PROTEXT
Leading by example, Rob Ainsley examines how
Pretext might handle a tricky mailshot problem.
okwD lou»
S SientUne Close
aniU Rd
ensingtoii
ondon
BAS SET
Sigurdsssn Ibsnusson Olafssm
Ca Uterine
Jones
67 Uhit Bator Hatj
Iristol
Avon
ISIS 7IU
Ragnusson Fiimbosadottir
Til (hurst
The sftuation; /ou have to write letters to all the
members of your Avant Garde Icelandic Music Club
urging them to come to an important concert.
First, you must have a file somewhere consisting of the
names and addresses. Though called a 'data file' it's a
normal Pretext file with one item
per line - name, town, postcode
etc. In addition there might be other
information such as the member's
title (Mr, Mrs or Ms etc, or a dash if
you are on first-name terms) and a
list of each member's favourite
composers. To standardise the
addresses, assume the format is as
follows: first name, surname, title,
up to four lines of address, town,
county, postcode, and favourite
composers. If there are less than
four lines of address, then by
putting exactly one blank between
them and the town (which can't be
blank) you can make sure Pretext
knows where to find the name of
the town, as described below.
One blank line exactly should
separate the end of one person's
entry from the start of the next.
Your data file will look something
like the example on the left.
Suppose this file is called
ADDR.DAT, 'Vou can now make up
your mailmerge letter on the same
disc as the one with your address
file.
Save trees
Wilt) your letter complete, you could enter the
command print (or p) for draft quality and
printq (or pq) for high quality, and Protext
would start merrily churning out letters one
after tite ottier, working througti ADDR.DAT
until it could go no furtfter.
However, ttw trickier the mailsttot you are
doing Itie more likely it is that you've got
someone's name wtierc you mean) itie street,
or made some other toul-up. An astoundingly
useful function of Pretext exists (or you to
print the lot to the screen first ~ that way you
can see each letter being made up and can
check that all tlie names and addresses are In
the right place, saving alt that wasted paper if
there's a mistake.
Just enter the command pa (print screen]
and you'll se« each letter being written before
yotir very eyes. If anything looks wrong you
can press [STOP], go back to the address file
and amend it until the letters print out OK, and
you can then pq to get your hard (taut fair)
copies. Before printing out anything, to screen
or paper, you should uva the letter and
address files.
Take a letter
Assume for now that the only personalising you want to do is
to have each recipient's name and address on the left near
the top of the letter, and have their first name after the
"Dear". Set up a document called concert. ltr say with the
following at the top of the file:
>df addr.dat
>rv name surname title
>rv addl add2 add3 add4
>rv town county
>irv postcode composers dummy
Any line with an angled bracket on the left hand side is a
'stored command' and is treated by Pretext as an instruction,
not a line to be printed. All your usual stored commands to
set up the headers, footers, margins and paper types should
also be in the file. For mailmerging runs, >cp on (continuous
paper on) is needed to set the printer up for continuous
stationery.
First, df tells Pretext to look for a file called ADDR.DAT
and read things from that file. The first rv' command will take
the next three things it sees there ('John', 'Smith' and -') and
call them name, sumame and title (rv stands for read
variables).
The next rv command assigns the four lines of address to
'addl ' to ■add4', and the next makes 'town' equal to London
(county is blank), and so on. The dummy' is needed to
make Protext skip the blank line to get to the next person's
details.
When Pretext comes to do this for Or Jones' record
things will be a bit different. Name, surname and title will be
OK but add2 is blank. When rv' sees a blank, it gives up
trying to read the rest of the variables in the line, so add3
and add4 are forgotten about. Pretext moves to the next rv
which assigns the town and county, then reads postcode,
composers and dummy with the next You shouldn't
normally have two blank lines together, so if 'composers' is
blank, then you don't have another blank for the dummy.
Othenwise Pretext thinks the first blank is the end -of- record
marker, gets out of step and thinks the next person's name
is blank.
Outlook variable
Now you can type the text of the letter, and if you put the
name of a variable between two s. signs, Protext will
substitute the current value of the variable - ie. in the first
letter when it sees ^surnames, it will print 'Smith'; at
spostcodes. it will print 'BA5 5ET' etc. So, continuing from
the above, your letter might read something like:
Avant Garde Icelandic Music Club
7 Seoul St
London EC3A 5YK
February 5th 1988
snantes asurnameS
Saddls
&add2&
SaddSs
&add4&
a towns
&count:yS
Spost codes
Dear SnameS,
Just to tell you, . .
etc. Note that in printing the address Protext smartly misses
out blank lines, so that Dr Jones won't have any gaps in her
address - add 2 to add4 will just be omitted.
Get personal
This is all very well and is a genuine mail merged letter, but
merely scratches the surface o( Pretext's depths. To make
ttie letter more soptiisticated, it might be nice to have some
flexibility to the content. You may have realised that in the
iayoLt of the example just given, if you don't know
someone's first name your letter iooks very silly - an
addressee 'B. Zimmerman' would be greeted as 'Dear B,*
Using the same address data fiie as before, you can
arrange to have people you know well addressed as "Dear
Jofin" etc, but others as "Dear Dr Jones", and to include
details on transport to the concert venue tor those living
outside Bristol.
To liandle the first point you'll need to make use of tfiat
litle' variable that mysteriously never got used before.
Instead of the iine "Dear &name& " in the letter, have the
toHowing:
>if title="-"
Dear &name&
>el
Dear Stitlefi Ssurnamei
>ei
Just to tell you . . .
and so on. When the condition after an i f is true. Pretext
prints everything between that line and the corresponding
>ei ('find if) line. Otherwise, the line following >ei ('else') is
printed - so here, all names with "■" for the title have the first
name printed after Dear': otherwise Pretext prints the title
(Dr, Mr, Ms, Col., etc) and the surname.
To get 'Dr C. Jones', etc., for the addressee's name and
address, you can use the routine
>if title-"-"
tnameS S surnames
>el
>sv iriitial=name [1]
£tit:le£ ^initials. &surnaroe&
>ei
The 'sv' command sets the value of a variable and the 'f '
in square brackets gets the first letter of the variable it's
attactied to, so here a new variable called 'initial' is created
Willi a value of the first letter of name'. Hence 'Catherine'
becomes C followed by the full stop after iinitiali, and
the whole line would read Dr 0. Jones'.
Now for the transport details. At the bottom of the letter
you might have:
...and I look forward to seeing you there.
>if towno "Bristol"
The Concert Hall is five minutes' walk north
from Bristol Temple Meads station...
This ensures alt those people at addresses not in Bristol
get directions to the concert hall - <> is Pretext's way of
saying 'not equal to'.
Stay composed
To get the maximum support for your concert it would be
nice to personalise the letters a bit more - for example, you
could mention in the letter any pieces being played by each
member's favourite composers.
Suppose that, in addition to Eriksson's sonata for half a
piano there are also works by Leosson and Sigurdsson. So,
for John Smith's letter, the first paragraph should end:
... and works by Sigurdsson.
For Dr Jones, who doesn't like any of the featured
composers, it should end
. . . and other works.
To insert this text into the middle of a paragraph by a
simple stored command isn't possible, as the stored
command, and hence the text following it, always has to
start on a new line.
You can, however, insert variables into the text anywhere
11. iDsteidt to^BwM"^
It t lHi J ff l tr.aH
ilu llvfa^vvkl ii Slfimi^
'wrki ii l»l» 114 Sl!n4)l
I iHllriiE *»K CM
Ttbrurv EU im
Iti 1lltul-<tH[l]
IHT ttltlfl llVUHt
- as was done with the names and addresses - so to get
round this you have to create a variable (called blurb' say)
whose contents are the required composers' names (or
"other works") and insert that.
After the 'rv' line, a series of commands like the following
will have the required effect:
>sv blurb="other works"
>if "Sigurdsson" in composers
>sv blurb="works by Sigurdsson"
>ei
followed later by a
paragraph in the letter
reading
. . . "Sonata for
Half a Piano and
Six Igneous
Rocks", and
fcblurbs .
Here the sv'
command makes
'blurb' equal to the
text "other works'"
first, but changes it to
the appropriate name
if it appears in the
addressee's list of
favourites. The
routine uses the in
function, which is
fairly self-explanatory
(notm is sometimes
useful as the opposite
of in.) To cope with
all possibilities
several statements
like this will be
needed.
The first
paragraph of the letter
should then have the
optimum eye-catching
effect for each
recipient. And don't
worry about the
formatting; Pretext
takes care of that
automatically.
Once you've
checked all is OK via
ps, load your
continuous paper,
start printing properly
with pq and off you go
for a walk and a nice
glass of Perrier water
while Pretext does the
hard work.
The whole truth
Tlwe ^s another command to
read variables from a file, 'tu'
rather than 'rv'. If you use 'ru'. a
line from the data lile is a^gned
to each variat^e whether itie line
istilankornoit Tfiiscanbe
uselul, particularly if you have
crealed jroui data t^e from a
database program
Itnwill t« U t l!tlMil <
d c:
^'"-
.," '* "^
"-•-5
^., '
*^ ^"^"""-^-^^
j
fi^^i
7
1 *"
!-X,
/
/ '^
"'--...
i
f
Nameist prejudice
Vou irtlgltt find onc« you've used rv to read
someorw's details off the data file ttiat you
don't want to send tttem a letter - maytie the
person Is a member of your family, all of
(Whom tMlong to the club.
Suppose you include the stored command
yak taitiBatF^SaBaixx^lMtitt
or whatever your name happens to be. The
'sk' command means the current person's
tetter won't be printed ft the toltowing
condition Is true, atid Proteit will move to tlw
next set of variables.
Naturally, Ihe 'sk' line has to go after the
'rv' commands so that Ihe correct surname is
knovirn, but before the first printed line of the
letter. All Bassingthwaltes will be missed off
the mail merge list. If your family name is
SmItI), you can'l use ttils trick so easily.
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[30.00 SO COL
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EPSON GQ3500 LASER PRINTER
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Hp Laser Jet compatibility
£1345
(maintenance available)
Canon Laser L0P-8 Mark II £1795.00
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KEYBOARD STORAGE DRAWER
'9 1 '
TX0Z1 : Keyboaid slwage
drawer. Sleel and plaslic
contatudicn. PC kfiytaoa/d
k>cat« in Ihe tray and can
tx lik) oul ol sigtii when not
In uM, sawn spaca on your
dMk and prolectt liom did
and Hum. CPU and monlloi
can slacif on lop
C3S
PRINTER PAPER
2000 Sheets 1 1x9.5 -SOgsm ((an) £15.00
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1000 Adhesive Labels 1 across £6.00
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Each E4.95
COPY HOLDER
f'^
What every work station
j^sl
ought to have .No nvjre
ISz&
bokjng down — or finding
"»
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J%>
smalt amount of space and can
^~7^^
be positioned at almost any angle.
' X^
TREAT YOURSELF E17.00 c
SjrRSCLI
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■ ES.tlO •
"THINOr
Chaip Copy Holder
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Hitchhikers Guide to tfie Galaxy £18.00
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Ace £15.00
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Steve Davis Snooker £12.00
PSI.5 Trading Company , £15,00
ONTEST
EDUCATION
THE THREE Rs
Stuck with the kids' homework? Keep them quiet
with these maths and English programs.
C^"'^^'-
' t ofiLT PIMP 5 esM4^ wp it'
Market
I uiiDi an, 'I'll ■ami U rtdr i ninbtr kftwn 1 ini IM. H, i llrn
•ust I RuUirly it »:« ta itl IM roint latUiiKg?'
Dif voice tntinuei, 'Utll imt\ lave i rimiti lot ijOiir Fri»<* Tau (Ml
fou'ri Ij 1 Vuslliij Hitet, lull of crwKls. IKO ini»jtiBS tnts lit nirlk
siHjUt. nut ti th( north is ttbflltd:
: Ktrror Raif - mn i luiimf :
Ott U kk souU rnds:
GIANTKILLER
£14.95 • Topologika (0733 244682)
• All POWs
Mathematics... if there's any subject guaranteed to bring a
chorus of groans from all around, it is this. Much time and
money has been invested over the years in trying to make
the subject come alive, ever since the days of Frankenstein,
Giantkitler' is a maths adventure' for age 1 upwards, which
might just have succeeded.
An adventure game based on mathematics sounds as
likely as a machine code listing made into a musical. But
don't let the mathematics tag frighten you off: boring topics
are presented as Ingenious puzzles in the course of the
game, not as abstract and disconnected questions. For
example, problems such as "which of the following shapes
tessellate - triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons,
octagons, decagons?" are presented in the Giantkiller game
by asking you to escape from pursuers across a pool of acid.
On hand you have heaps of acid-proof tiles of various
shapes - triangles, squares, five-, six- and eight-sided tiles
etc - and you'll soon hit on the idea of covering the pool with
: f lilt thr C4lciliUr Cwt ind lin
i rnmy! Mr] mt rut.
tli»9M»S iMd Hit IHl i«utkll«tt.
A Some ol the puules to be solved an the way to winning that magic bean
them and walking across. Ah, but they've got to fit together
perfectly, haven't they, or the acid will come through, which
means.,, and after a bit of drawing and mucking about with
shapes you'll find that triangles, squares and hexagons do
that, but the others don't. You've answered the question
above but done it naturally and had the fun of solving a
problem for yourself which actually has a meaning and an
end result.
Has beans
The adventure is loosely based on Jack and the Beanstalk,
with the the player or players taking the role of Jack (or
Jackie). As the hero you have to go to market to buy a pig
for your Mum; all the pigs have been sold, but by entering a
series of competitions you can multiply your groat into a
magic bean. One is a mirror maze; another is a competition
to see if you can put eighteen bottles in a six-by-four crate
MICRO ENGLISH
£24 • LCL (0491 579345)
All PCWs
English is a very funny language with a patently ridiculous
way of spelling words. 'Hero' takes an 'e' in the plural, for
example, but 'banjo' and 'solo' don't {though even one banjo
solo is usually one too many), 'Hearth' and 'dearth' are
pronounced! differently. Without the confusion caused by the
apostrophes in its, it's, your, you're, whose and who's, the
Times would have nothing to put in its letters column.
I rt Scort by.
L'rt ruretuttipn ints Uit lotlMing smtnuts.Us* SMi-colou iM eoUns
rt psjiiklt . hu MS ust S or S
-nti dog.'uU tilt un.-bit «.*
leutr u)d"Jee lin in ttai.'
"l«v«,'Mid Jee," Uts im-fflod."
'toDdntii *t>*Ii« ihsvttd,
ls( upFtr MS» lir MMS,(.}.'llTm'.
list mn m* (» iiMH,!.}. trm.
[ r«d "fcitlKtli* Bfsttrdis.
iou unt ii«r( (s^n/lieli/? to rtfiat fuoI? I
A Nostalgia fn all readers over sixteen
36 8000 PLUS
Micro English is described as a complete English
language course for O-level self tuition or revision. The Idea
of using your PCW as a teaching aid for your college,
yourself or your clamouring offspring is an attractive one.
With Micro English you can, according to the booklet, test
yourself on and revise punctuation, spelling, vocabulary,
figures of speech, precis, commonly confused words,
irregular plurals, summary and comprehension, all in a style
closely modelled on the O-level examination (as it used to
be), 'Your PCW impassively quotes your mark and time
taken for each exercise for you to monitor your progress
without embarrassment.
Micro English runs from BASIC, and after getting the
familiar Ok' message you insert your program disc and type
RUN "MENU: after the title screen you are given a menu with
a choice of twelve areas on each side of the disc to be
tested on. Also provided Is an audio cassette which links in
with the programs on disc.
Cloudy periods
The punctuation section is a little dubious, A few basics are
explained first and on subsequent screens you are given a
list of sentences to punctuate - though the initial explanation
contains at least one incomprehensibly punctuated sentence
(it says of commas that they "are also used to separate
indirect speech from direct speech, for ex am pie, the 'he sakll
from what he said.") The test sentences to be punctuated
are fair enough but it expects no spaces after commas,
which is rather unconventional, and isn't even consistent
about spaces after full stops.
so thai every raw and column has an even number of bottles
(trickier than you'd think).
But is it a game?
This is an educational game, not a professional adventure
program: all the commands you type in have to bs very
simple (usually just directions: N, S, E, W etc) and there's
none of the 'intelligence' of. say, the Hitch Hiker's Guide to
ifie Galaxy, where your commands can almost be normal
English sentences.
But it's fun, and the mathematical content is very good.
Nol only is there plenty of chance to develop visual and
spatial siiiils from the map making necessary to find your way
round, but the puzzles are varied, cleverly integrated into the
scenario and enjoyable, and would all serve as a starting
point for further activities in a classroom,
Tlie progression of the game Is virtually decided
beforehand and there's only one solution' - great because it
makes the thing virtually foolproof and ensures weak players
get carried along and don't lose interest, though it means as
an adventure it's a bit
restricted.
On planting the
magic bean you can
climb up to the Giant's
castle and get the goose
wfilch lays prime eggs
(CK, an awful pun, but a
neat way of working In
some stuff about prime
numbers). If you
successfully negotiate
Uiat there's still a lot
more exploring to do, in
a dungeon under your
house and over a chasm down the road. Any time you want
help you can call your fairy godmother for advice, a neat way
of personifying a help screeni
There's quite a range of subjects covered in the puzzles
encountered: calculation, topology, time and space, logic,
prime numbers, elementary number theory and so on, but all
plausibly occurring In context.
This game would be an excellent Christmas present (and
a sneaky way of slipping in some mathematics practice) for
any pre 0-level students who have access to a PCW, or for
their parents. There's a complete worked solution in the
handbook so you can keep that secretly for yourself if you
want to impress your kids with your ability to solve
everything.
Being able to finish the game with a maximum 250 pointe
may not make you much more likely to pass the GCSE but
the great thing about this game is that it contributes to the
demystifying of mathematics, makes the subject mean
something, and can actually be tun.
ONTEST
EDUCATION
Topology note
Topology is itie brancli o!
malheinate whicii proves tiiat,
lor eianji^e, oniy lour oolouts
are needed to shade in any map
of the world so no neightKiuring
i;ounlries ate ihe same colois.
Mattiamatiaans didn't believe
Ihis lad until Ihe 1970s.
alihough ihey proved it a
hundred years ago lof
dougtinut-shaped planets.
jr***'*
PLUSES
Puzzles plausibly Integrated Into scenario
Progression of game Is simple and well-
defined
Plenty of starting points for further work
Mathematics made tun I
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ Program understands only extremely
simple commands
■ Saving a position lakes a move, which can
be fatal In hectic situations
■ Won't be of particular help for exams
PERFORHflANCE
DOCUMENTATION
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
There are two spelling sections, which use the
supplied cassette tape. Words are read out on the tape
(examples being 'conscious', 'flamboyant', 'bicycle',
'cupboard', etc) and you type them onto the screen; the
PCW charts your running percentage score and tells you
how much time you've taken {but it would have been nice
to see tile time quoted in minutes rather than seconds -
knowing you've done a comprehension in 1649 seconds
doesn't help much. The clock seems to run a bit slow.
Expletive deleted ■
One major problem is that the delete key doesn't appear to
work. You might make an innocent typing error on a spelling
test and get marked down because you can't correct it. try
as you will. In fact, there is a way to delete: a capital D has
been employed as the delete, which causes all sorts of
confusion if you like to work with Shift Lock on: try to type in
ADDRESS. It seems rather odd to assign the delete function
to a capital letter in a spelling program when other keys are
available (the one marked 'DEL', for example), and even
odder to make no mention of this at all in the manual.
There are also vocabulary tests, a straight word-equals-
which-one-of-four-phrases [or vice versa) multiple choice.
For impartial', for example, you're offered 'to become
known'.'impossible to overcome', 'favouring neither side', or
'no law or order'; it appears the alternatives are chosen at
random, and there seems no attempt to make them all the
same part of speech - verb, noun, adjective etc - as the test
word. Also, questions you've got right already keep coming
back, and there's no filtering out.
Summary
The main plus point to this
program is the facility to list
and change the data files for
each exercise - these files are
unprotected - and insert your
own examples. As well as
being easy to do (and fun) it
means you can personalise
^^^^ your package to suit your
'^^^^^ requirements - if your son
needs practice on his
apostrophe's or your daughter on her speiing you can give
them as many new exercises as they can handle.
This is actually quite a handy little package. The design is
a bit iffy and there's no excuse for not mentioning how to
delete letters in the manual, but apart from that it could
prove be a useful tool.
A COmFn tmSH UUMUME COUBE
0^ 14 EASV TO use PnOCfWHS FDA 0C3C
ID'4.£VCLJSE1.F nMTKMOAffiVlSKM
Linguistic note
T)» English language is a hytirid
d thiee Germanic dialects
(Julisii. Saxon and Anglian),
superimposed on indigenous
Ceic, with a lingering element
nl Latin, subsequenlly inlluenced
by Norse. Danisii and then
Norman French; no wonder the
spelling is inconsisieni It has a
larger uocalwlary Itian any othw
- aboul tefi 3 million words -
and is tlie most widely spoken
language in the woild. wilh
around 400.000.000 speakers
PLUSES
Simple and easy to use
Can adapt It to your own tequlrements
Slicks to 0-level style
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ Very silly «my of deteling letters, not even
mentioned In the manual
■ Punctual Ion inconsistent
■ Used questions recur
PERFORMANCE
DOCUMENTATION
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
8000 PLUS 37
TTf?
JIAUuuij
• Daisvwheel Printer
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DIALUP Personal is an easy to use comnris package, with oil the
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It's menu driven ond simple to send prepared letters, documents,
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For the technicolly minded DIALUP offers
• XMODEM and KERtVlfT file transfer protocols
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DIALUP Personal is only £89.95 (irx; VAT) and can be used with
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Pleose send me
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O Further detoiisol DIALUP Persorvcil
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BOOKS FOR PCW
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Amstrad 8256?e51 2 Mihs WordprocsMkig
£12.95
£9.95
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El 2-95
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£8.95
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Amsirad Word ProoosaintfPCW 6256
f7.9S
£8.95
An Imroducsiwi CP/M plus on Arrulradi
£7.95
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£9.95
£6.95
£5.95
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£7.95
= radical Logo 00 1 ha Anwrad
£6.95
Proflram Youi PCWI (MaBard)
C6.fl5
Soft 971-OP Program GukJo {Dfa Rab)
User Guide to Amstrad PCW 8256^512
E250Q
£10.95
Usino Ills PCW 6256
Word Piocesslng Amslrad 6256 (Macillan)
C9.e5
£6.95
Advanced AmsltatJ Basic
£12.95
Amstrad Communkalion* CPC/PCW
£6.95
Amslrad Companioo
ArFistrad PCWa25a8512 Motelhan
£7.95
£9.95
Programming the PCWI
£6.95
Step bv Slep Guitte to LoooscrW
Basic 2 Us8i GukJo
£4.95
£9.95
.ocomquve Baaic 2 (or PCW
£9.95
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dafltytSuidesAfiBlrad PCW
EB.95
£8.95
Progiam ^oui PCW (MaJIwd; 2nd Edtlon
£7A5
Programming Bta Z80
£10.95
Z80 Ha(e(enc« Guide
£1Z95
280 Applcailons
£15.95
ZBDAESsmbly Lang. SubnutlnM
£19.95
zeo Assembly Lang. Programming
15 Hour Wordproosulng on ths MIS
£19.95
£4.95
Gat Started aasic+L090 PCW
£S.9S
HItchhikars Guide A/l^al Irneaigsnca AMS
£6.95
PocJiet Wordstar PCW
£7.5C
Using AmEirad OP/M BuBlnew totiware
£6.95
Using DatabSMS on 1l>e Amstrad PCW
Word Prooaulng on ttw Amtlrad 6256 (QIantap}
£8.95
£6.95
LBSURE FOR YOUR PCW
Batnian
£13.00
CyruES Chess II
£14.0C
Lonj o( Iha Rings
£}BJK
Falrllohi
£13.0C
erstge Player
Lsaher Qoddassat
E16X)C
£20 OC
ZorKI
E20.0C
Enchanter
E20.0C
Witness
E20.0C
Ballyhoo
£20.0C
Planertall
E20.0C
HIichJiikereGukia
E20.0C
CutUlroals
E20.0C
French MIslrsM (TMm
£1800
Sorcaer
E22.0C
The Lmg Dayllghls
£16.00
Si«a Oauis Snoikar
£13.50
GulkJofThievm
£22.00
Blactelar
£13.50
Soundar
£12.50
SpajiishTulor (Tutorial)
£1SIX)
3D OocK Chess
Eiejx)
Si rite Force Harrier
Eieix)
Scribe
E17XX)
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£2000
Heroes d Khan
£14iX)
Colo»ug4ChSBa
£1700
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£1900
Smcon Dream
E18OT
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E11D0
PS 1-5 Trading CorTpany (Space Advertlur*)
t\SDO
Head Over Heals
ei3«)
The Fourth Prolacd
£140)
Moonmisl
E20iX)
Stargllder
£2000
Brian Cbughs Football Game*
£2OB0
Classic OollBctbn (3 Games)
E13XX)
TauCetl
£1800
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Amstrad DMP 30 15
£200X»
Amstrad LC13500
E350XP0
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£180i)0
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Epson LX800
G75iX:
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£27000
Tally MTBO PC+
£20000
Juki 6000 Daisywheel
£20000
Juki 6100 Daisywhael
£36000
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Copy Holder Thlngy ((lis to monllor)
£600
2000 ShaelB Listing Paper (P&P £3)
£14jOC
4000 Labels (1 across)
£17jOC
8000 Labels [2 across)
t20X
DlscSlorageacH(holdB30(l
E12JIK
Disc Slora je Ben (holds 70)
£15jOC
Mouse Mai by AMX
ESOC
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ES4JXi
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E114J0C
Electric Studio Digttissr
E92j00
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E22.5C
F02 Second Disc dtAie
£149jOC
FD2 and Memory Upgrade
£170jOO
6256 memory Upgrade
£25j00
RS23aCantrDniC3 Upgrade
ES7JM
V21/23 Amstfad Modem
{SSOC
2 PCW pdntar Ribbons
£900
Co«refaet(3pt9ce)
£1000
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£1200
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E30O0
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£5000
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£2400
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£7300
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£8200
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Smart Key £39.00
Condor 1 £65.00
Time Keeper £4500
CAMSOFT ACCOUNTS
Cambase Database £45.00
Payroll E4S.00
Siock/lnvototf Sales — Irtlegrated £85,00
Sale&rPurchase/Nomin^ -^ Irrtegraled £85.00
Slock/lnvoacs'Saies/Purcriaaeif Nominal £135.00
Abrwe modulee stand alone each £45.00
OTMEnS
Superclac2 £40.00
dB»e 2 £S9.(X)
Oayt>ook £47.00
Raaltl meAudkJ Tutor £9.50
Prospeil (spelling checker) £24.00
Dalai iow'Mal mow III (maiirTwrga k>co«crt>t) £47.00
Poctol Wordstar Deiux (wdh Spellstar) £5500
Roiae (Print Ulilty] £20.00
Tasword 6000 £19.50
Tasprlnl 8000 £12.50
TaspellSOOO £14.50
Protesfl £75.00
Cracker 2 PCW Spreadsheet £46.00
Micro collection Card File Database £46.00
CSTAM PCW to PC File Transfer E46.00
Neword E59O0
Locoscflpt 2 E18.5C
Amor V Progranming Language £46,00
Misoft "C Programming Lar^gLraoe £37,50
Hisod Pascal £37.50
Fleet Street EdNor Plus £60,00
Fonts and Graphics PCW £ 1 800
AMX Stop Press £4600
MAIL ORDER COUPON
P&H ELECTRONICS UMITED
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Please send me: (or order by letter)
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PL£A3E MAKE CHEOUESrPOSTAL OROE RS PAVABLE TO:
HH tUCTnOHCS UHTTED
O qunB yourCirO NumMt aid Ex|>y □•tiptHH UK CARHAOE COST?
— SOFTWABe « BOOKS FREE — SYSTE MS.PRINTERS — E700, AOC ESSORI ES — E2.00 OUEHSEAS ORDERS
— 0VERn£.CI0SEMTVATFREEiriCLUDiHGeFF>OOnDEFtSSENTATI.rKnATE3.r>lwHmalwd pnyms^U
inSfartngCiirlagt— Budu. ScTbar b. Auy — £3.00 fm tan Syflvn • — CW.OO. tJlic Di^h. Print«t— 00.00
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P&P
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Address
I enclose cheque/PO for £
Or please debit rny Access/Barclaycard/Visa* (delete as applicable)
Card Number . Expiry Date
Telephone
80001187!
A A myS«ry MallanJ SASIC
tetingmalulisi^eSotlstrip
SOFTWARE
STRIPPER
Banish typing errors for ever!
SOFTSTRIP
£230 • Softstrip International {01-631 3775)
• 8000s only
The idea behind Softstrip is very similar to that behind those
supermarket bar codes. Despite having brains the size of
planets, computers are useless at reading simple price tags,
and up till recently (and still in some old-fashioned shops)
the assistant had to punch in the prices manually in to the
till. However, now all your brown rice and fresh pasta has
the price bar-coded, in a form that the tills computer can be
taught to read, making life more pleasant for everyone.
Softstrip can turn any file - a LocoScript document, a
BASIC listing, data from your spreadsheet - into a series of
strips of bar code-iike dashes. These strips can
be photocopied, folded, dropped into a mug of
coffee, dried out, sent by overland maii to Ulan
Bator, and still be perfectly readable at the other
end by someone who has a Softstrip reader,
which briskly scans the strips and writes the
information back on to a fiie on disc. If you have
to send the same software to a lot of people
and/or don't like risking discs in the post, it could
be a godsend.
Reading and writing
There are two components to the package, a dfec with the
PLUSES
Strips can be folded'photocop led/posted
Could tie 3 godsend lor program listings
typists
Good error checking on the printed strips
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ It's expensive
■ Needs a large user base lo t>e viable
PERFORHflANCE
DOCUMENTATION
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
reading and printing programs, and the scanner unit itself.
Making your software - say a listing from 8000 Plus - into
strips is easy. With CPIM running you just insert the disc,
enter submit ssm, give the drive and name of file you want
to encode, insert your disc, and the strip prints out neatly on
your ordinary PCW printer. There's one sthp for each
823 characters of file, and each strip takes about two
minutes or so to print out. There's a blob and a bar with a
number by each strip; these are lining-up marks and
reference numbers for the sthp above that.
If you want to read a strip you have to connect the
softstrip reader up to your PCW via an RS232 interface;
once done, reading a strip is reasonably easy. After typing
SDBMiT SSR the screen prompts you to insert the paper in
the reader and after reading the first strip asks for the
filename and drive to save it to. It then prompts you as it
reads second and subsequent strips until the tile is read.
Each strip takes around thirty seconds to read.
The reader sits flat on top of the strip sheet, which you
have to manually position aligning those blobs and bars in
the right place - but you don't have to worry about it tieing
out of line and getting a load of gobbledegook read in; the
reader can tell if something's out of place and will ask you to
re-align the strip. There's a complex system of checking
numbers built in to the dots too, so it's extremely unlikely
that any reading errors would make it through to the final
version saved on disc without being spotted and amended .
Soft, strong and very long
The strips themselves are pretty robust. Coffee was spilled
under laboratory conditions onto a strip which was then dried
out over a convector heater. The reader happily scanned the
strip and wrote the file to disc error-free. Folding the paper
with sharp creases didn't have any adverse effect either.
Photocopied sheets are also quite acceptable, which of
course is the main advantage to any club sending listings
out. The copy must be quite clean and not reduced in size .
Copies done on a light setting may not tie read so it's a good
idea to experiment with some of the darker settings and
check they read OK before running twelve thousand copies.
Strip clubs?
The potential for this PCW adaption of the Softstrip system
is enormous. Clubs, computer user groups, or companies
with the ubiquitous PCWs could send batches of software to
each other through the post and even include software in
mailshots; compare the cost of a thousand photocopies to a
thousand discs, in theory, (onward looking magazines will
pnnt their program listings pages in strip form.
Some years ago owners of the BBC li^icro could buy a
similar bar code reader for a significantly less than £100.
The device never really caught on, and although Softstrip is
technically superior (the printed codes are more compact
and error -proof) it does seem at least £100 overpriced if
it is to make any impact on the PCW market. ^R
40 8000 PLUS
Good Value Starts Here
M,
tono-
IS o6ta<^tto--n- .
B^9. 9S
Five fine progircima fi-om Sm£c>t> ComptiLin^.
• DATADASK • WC>Ul> l'U(>t;i':MSOIi
Willi timjj jjxea-jfB,
• LABELLING ■• SPREADSHEET
* FILE SECURITY
applicatiozis for tho price »on-ic |>u1jli2d2\cra (tslc
for jxiat onLc program. A complete meinueil wiLli
TTorlceci cxfLkTiplcs 19 inr^Lticlticl to lidli> fsvcn tlie
Bovice user £ot utiki^tuil. Idtiit.! rttt' ,>
CLUBS
SCHOOLS
OFFICES
CilUIiCIIES
SHOPS
NEW USERS
"Deaervea to tnj 11 vt' in 1 1 ii i-'" Al*<,' Mil j^ti.'x.tf b>u,
"Great temri . , ,^;<coJlen t. biiJtiiitLt. urr)U^/:in£
"Very good ^oikerihl ptii^pd^t^ lUTitrM t;t>j>l.i-ol
I>Eidciia;c*' 0000 I'liiM MfAf^itvti tici »
^ <:ij^.nl>-<x^^ oe4 ocx&y^^^rt-^:^
G29. 95^
AccoiLiiitir>e &; VAT foi" c:ttMlh 1^1; IrJi i I4; ri4
iful<JWu^ £ 9.95
Prints spreutlsliec^tij 3k. »vi<l(; ril<^h« ^licl tsivjiy h
00 Amstrad PCW or Kpsfoii t^'pc prirkters.
fiit UB et:iovd yoiLii.- lIilLjjl X'l-oirx l'{-
lIlMlfU tL!
Write or ptione now to order or ualc for dotaila
J. X ^Arraixi Roi^U. i.t^cjronrj ulU.
BEVERLEY, IIumlj£.^r*^ict t- IlUl V '?NI^
Ptioi-ie 04 fi I — r»4>rif»v i'.t'\ >i()iir'H>
A MUCH BETTER DEAL - WEEK AFTER WEEK
HARDWARE & PERIPHERALS
RRP WAVE
Amurtd CPC6 1 26 ComfHiter -4- colour mooiior ft disc drive inc
TOE Joystick a ITiopgimeswofth i!l5CI+(TOT.SEF'.£5K>+t }».W
Amstnd PCW85S6 CompcjierWoTil Processor + monitor $ printer 4S8.8S
Amsirjd PCVifflS 1 2 Computer/Word Processor + monitors D/W primer S73.aS
Airutrad PC 15 1 2 Double Drive Colour Home Office pack incl:
h%nt Aliilitj and -4 US Gold games (TOT,SEP.£!043) 7«.35
Amstrad PCI 5 1 2BP lnc;PC 1 5 1 2 DouWe Drive Hoiw + DMP3000 Printer +
Superok 3 + Wordstar iSI2n"0T.SEP. £977. 10) ajMS
Amitnd PC 16* Double Drive Cobur „ I033J5
Upgrade Kit 2nd 3" drive & 256K FWM Upgnite - PCW8I« . 232.85
Gtaen LSPIO printer FiT MLQ parallel (Special Offer) 3li.lS
Cimen S Star printers retail lest 25% + tS P&F
Kempston products mouse's, interfaces etc. retail less 2Mt + O. PSP
fttlion, Printer - PCWB25Wg5 1 1 „,_„ Pkt 5 24.75
Rjbbofi, Printer - PCW9S 12 _ Pitt S 19.15
PrintwheeU - PCW95 12(6 st^ avaJibtej Each 5.61
Piintwheels - PCVW5 12 „ „ Full semf 8 ^iM,
SOFTWARE
Advance'Rational Sol. Database Manager (At Last) - CPOPCW .
Amsolt Supercalc 1 - 6 liafPCW
Amor Proteit inc; Spell dwcker & nailmei^e - tlia/PCW
Campbell Sjiiems Misterflie BOOO - PCW
Cimsolt software retail less 30% + £3 PSP
Caxton Cardbox elecuonic ord index (Database) - 6126/PCW ..
Coraii software retail las 25% + CL P&P
Hisoft software retail less 20% + £2 P&P
Loconwtivc Locoicript 2 - PCW [+ VAT Sip) .
29.95
^'on
....... 59.95
49.95
309.56 (AhiCl
2B4.05 [A)
44910 (A)
555,45 (AI^C)
598.50 (ANC)
809.10 (ANC)
1 17.39 (B)
17875 (A)
13.70(D)
I3,3!(D)
3.79(E)
28.28(C)
18.23(D)
33.04(C)
43.48 (C)
32.58 (D)
. S9.99 40.44 (0)
M<tro-Sifnplei! small btsiness accounts S VAT - 61 2a/PCW .
Prkle Utilitres software retail less 25% + 1 1 PSP
PSS ioftvnre retail less 25% + £ I PSP
Sage software retail less 30% + £2 PSP
Siren software retail less 20% + £ I PSP
CF2 3' Walk discs DS^br all 3" drives cased
Wihisti ett 5 25' mOD 40T blank diss
..... I».»5
.., 1 14,94
16.50 (D)
57.97 (C)
. Bi» 10 49.50
...Pkt 15 -
IRIO(D)
7.61 (D)
AU. CURRENT CHART GAMES SOI^TWARE RETAIL LESS 30% 4- II P&P
********************************** WAVE PRICESEXCLUDE VAT
ENGLAND pott ft int.: (A)U.Oa (B)£4.00 {C)C3,00 (D)£2.00 (E)tl.00 (F>50p
ANC:3 day £9.D0 Next Day C 12.00. Admin. Offlcet, callm by appointntent oflly
Stock itetni b)f return of post Prtces in Ms advert are ytlld for 14 olajci.
W.A.V.E. (Dept. 80001287)
Wainey Audio Visual & Electrical
S3 Shearwater Crescent, Barrow-in-Furness Cumbria LAI43JP
S 0229-44753/29 1 09 Hours : Mon-Fri 1 0.00 - S.OO
THE SOLUTION TO TRANSPORTING
YOUR COMPUTER
Our carrier is iJesJgned
specifically for Ihe
fl25fi'8S1 2. tt is
manufaclured lo a very
high siarKlard with
reinforced protective sides
a/id base Heavy duty
zipper openings. Extra
sironQ adjusfable shouldw
carry strap.
• LIGHTWEIGHT airr
STRONG
• LEAVES BOTH HANDS
FREE
• FOLDS FIAT
• SHOWERPROOF
• INTERNALDIMEN-
siONSirjtie.s'xiT
SAFELY
£19.95
Eacti be.
VAT
SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED
FOR 8256/8512
NOW AVAIL FOR PC 1 51 2 (pise specify)
£4.95
he VAT
WIUER
THE SOLUTION TO SCREEN PROBLEMS
Available for a wide range
c\ monitors Including
8256/8512
£39.95
Inc. VAT
• Eliminate reflectiorv, blurred images
and gla/B which can cause eyestrain
and headaches. CROWNFILTER
increases clarity, contrast and
definition 100%.
• CROWNFILTER absorbs 62% of
radiation emitted from youf monitor.
• Each Crown filter is designed and
contoured to fit each individual
monitor model .
• Easy ID lit - simply attach by velcro
pads supplied and easy to clean.
CROWNnLTEBisahighqualily
product manufacttifed from specially
coated organic glass. Tested and
guaranteed to meet our rigid
standards. Please do not confuse
C ROWN FILTERwiihcheaperperspex
or mesh sta'eens. They simply do rot
compare with CROWNF ILTER.
DUST COVERS
HBBONS
High quaiit/ nyton — 3 poe
8256/6512 i:i1.9S
IDEAL XMAS GIFTS
(mirZposltree)
8256febnc £3.75
9512 El 3.95
B266 carbon £5.45
PLONKER BOX C4.93
Rod, blue, graon.
Prinier covers — wide range
CLEANING KIT E4.93
brtJMi £5.75
ao ooi lae.tjo
»512cart»n £3.86
132 col £6,95
»12pfintwheel£5.e0
AH prices include VAT
CALL NOW to order
CREDIT CARD DESPATCHLINE
__0_70_48?5815_
OR SEND (XPUf^N FHEEPOST TO: CROW^N COMPUTER PRODUCTS, (80OO+12)
BURSCOUGti ORMSKIRK LANCS L40 4AB
I wlali U) oniBr
Value
PAP £1 .OD friEU (Mai E3.0Q)
I enctou ChequerPO
I 01 cliatge my AcoeesAriw Nu.:
Mydstailt
Nam*
Trt. No,;-
Eipliy Date:
r?
PCW Discs
AmsoftCFlper to £«.«
Amsoft CF2 per S £11.95
Maxwell Cn per 10 £22.95
Maxwell CF2 per S £1 2.49
)?
PCW Hardware
PCW8156(iPKlocoicripi2) ... £320.00
*PCW9SI2 £47?.00
*PC 1 5 1 2 SD Mono + 20Mti . £SW 00
*PCI6« SD Col. + 20Mb .... £949.00
CPSa2S6^SI2inierfj£e £ 59.9S
Serial CjWe £ I2.9S
PjnItI Cable ..,„.,. £ I2.9S
FD2 Second Drive PCW £142.95
Memory Upgrade Kit £ 14.95
PCW Work Suiion £1 1 1 95
rr
Grapfiks
DRDraw £ 39.00
DR Graph £ 39.00
E. Studio light pen £ 64.40
E. Studio nKMJie £ 106.56
AMX mouse + desktop £71,95
5ijnwri«rPCW £ 39,96
Extra (onD (or above £ S.75
95 1 2 software pKone for prices
StarNLIODMP IIOCPS .... £229.85
(Which report recommended buy)
Star NX 1 5 wide carriage .... £349.00
Micro P. MP36 djisywlwel . £259.75
Micro P. MP40 dais/wheel . £379.50
Parallel lead 2m .„. £ 12.95
J
INTERNATIONAL
r
Storage
~\
AMSidL £12.95
hatds2ICF2inl«>.C9Ues
PROTOeOX £ 4.95
hoMilOCFlH. lib. case)
Dttslctop Pubfishing
Flee: Street Editor + £49.95
Nev«de5k International £37.95
Desktop Publisher £23.95
Desktop Pub. + mouse £67.96
E. Studio snip art £13.30
E. Studio font module -. £18.40
Graphics op. i)«tem £58,95
95 1 2 software phone for prices .
r
Mmlmmr09
An essential tool for an/bod^
involved in direct mailshots
Amsoft Locomail £29,95
Dacanow/Mailflow III £39.96
Flexilabel £27.95
Pap«r
II x9.IS40GSM20QOstimu .. £14 9S*
II x; IS 70 GSM 2000 sheets lll,.9S*
A4 70GSM 2000 sheen a095
A4roGSM 1 000 sheets £1195
t I X I4.SM>GSM1000 sheets . ilO.K*
1000 Labels I across vfeb i 5 W
2000 Labels 2 acrass vreb I 849
* plain or music niled
J
Books
The Amjirad CP/M plus £I2,9S
Int. Ams. CP;m Assembly Lan. .. £ 9.9S
Praccical Amstrad W/process -,- £ 7.9S
Amstrad ComnHinications £ S,9S
Program your PCW Tml Ed £ 6.95
Mastering the Amitrad PCW ... £ 8.95
Using dBase II £19,95
Users Guide to dBase II £13.95
Pocket Wordstar PCW L
Get Started B ASIC/Logo £
Supercalc prompt 2nd ed £
Introduction to Pascal £1
Desktop Publishing £
Programming the 780 , £1
Uiiiig Databases PCW £
7.S0
5.95
9.95
7.95
6.95
9.95
6,95
Over 1 500 Titles for computers and software, phone for prices
RUGBY MICRO SPARES
36a ABBEY STREET,
RUGBY WARWICKSHIRE
ENGLAND CV21 3LH
0788 69344
Dusf Covers
Keep the dust at bay with
this cotton piped PVC set
at the low price of
£9.95
V_
Wordprocessing
Amor Prcnext ..„.._....„„ £47.95
Amor Pocket Protem ...._ £34 95
Pocket Worditar £}S 6S
Pocket Wordstar D^uxe _ £56,66
Newword2 _ , £59.80
Taiword 8000 £ 1 8 95
Amor ProjpeK £12.95
Amiofi Locospeil .... ............. £29 95
Tispell 6OO0 £ 1 2 85
Supertype __,„ £18.49
Tasprint 6000 ,^^ . £ I ] ,95
Locoseri pt j £ 1 9,49
9S 1 2 soFiware phone for prices
Databa»9
Masterfile 8O0O £39.90
Database man, {At Last) £22.95
Caxton Cardbox £44.59
Delta 1 ,2S £74.14
dBase II £85.95
Plan It £19.95
95 1 2 software phone for prices
M iscslf ancous
Amor BCPL £32.95
Arnor Maxam II £39.96
Arnor'C £3996
PCW Ribbons black fabric .... £ 3 95
PCW Ribbons black carbon £ 5. SO
PCW ribbons coloured £ 4.9S
^
r
Bespoke Stationery
Sage statements 2S0 £IZ9S
500 £23.95
1000 £39.95
Sage wage ilips 250 £14.38
500 £27,95
tOOO £49,95
Stationery available for Compact.
Camsoft. Map or to your own
design.
A
PCW SoftwarB
LexhtrGotfdEsses ,_._„„ £i?,96
Mooomijt „ , £19.9*
Ttfnahawli ,._^^^^,_, £(5.?4
Hitchhikers Glildt , £19.96
HiKithlktrtClueBodt . £ 6 95
StirGljder £19 95
Flirlighi £12.95
Strike FoTM Hirrier ._.. £15.96
Colcssvs bridge 4 ,,,, £12.95
Cojosius Ciiesi 4 . . £1195
$t«ve Davr«i SnoDkvr , £ 14.95
H«d Oyer Heels -.... ™..^.. £r2,9S
HejEivcw Cortu-oller , , £ 1 6.9S
Leadcrbaard Goif „ £15.96
SpreadsfMafs
Multiplan £57.50
Supercalc 2 £39.96
Cracker 2 with gr^ph £39.20
Caxton Scratchpad .............. £44.95
Rotate (sidewa^ print) £18.95
9512 software phone for prices
Communica tions
Sage Chit Chat Combo £209,99
(inc modem)
Sage Chit Chat Email £162,49
{inc modern)
Sage Chit Chat Combo , ,,
Sage Chit Chat Email ........
Sage Chit Chat V Data
Mirade WS4000 rrnxJem .
Pace Linnet modem £147.95
7920
55,99
55,99
79.40
^ 95 1 2 Comms phone for prices
r
Accounts
Camsoft Int.Acc.SISPN £f 1 1.34
Camsoft Int. Ace. SPN £ 74.12
Camsoft Invoicing £ 37.9S
Camsoft Sales Ledger £ 17 95
Camsoft Purch Ledger £ 37.95
Camsoft Nom. Ledger £ 37.95
Camsoft Stock Control £ 37.95
Camsoft Payroll £ 37.95
Compact Accounts £148.46
Compact Accounts Plus £185.62
Map Int. Accounts £104.99
Sage Super Combo £ 1 6 1 .99
Sage Accounts Plus , , £104.99
Sage Combo (payroll) £104.99
Sage Popular Accounts £ 74.9S
Sage Payroll £ 54.59
AdvatKed Money Mans^er . £ 22.95
Adv. Money Manager Plus „ £ 29.79
TELEX NO. 312242 MHDTLX 6
We accept Official Purchase Orders from Government and Educacionat Establishments.
All discs usually dispatched SAME DAY by 4pm. Place your order using your Credit Card.
Prices and Delivery subject to availability. All prices inc. VAT and Delivery
Desktop publishing is the in ttitng. Impressive
though it sounds, it's a rather vague term
covering everything from photocopying a
LocoScripted office memo for five pence a sheet
to the page iayout of a money-spinning glossy
magazine. To most PCW owners DTP means
producing newsletters - but do you really need
specialised software, and how much does the
whole thing cost?
Of course you don't need a PCW to produce
newsletters. Your local High Street print shop will be
able to lay pages out for you; you just have to
supply the text, handwritten in biro if you like. This costs,
though. El 5 upwards per page; so even after tvno pages
you've spent more than the cost ot a PCW/ program which
would enable you to do the page layout yourself - make up
headlines as large as you like, juggle text around for the best
arrangement, and manipulate graphics boxes with simple
pictures and logos,
PCW quality won't be sufficient to compete with the
professionals, unless you're prepared to spend several
thousand pounds on equipment; headlines and large letters
lend to be jagged and 'fc>oxy' and the instant graphics {or 'clip
art') supplied won't be works of art. But for DIY publications
- club, community or company newsletters, notices, posters,
and so on - DTP is not only an inexpensive way of
producing perfectly acceptable results, it's great fun too.
Lay it on me
Vou can just use LocoScript to make your news sheet - you
dont actually have to buy a specialist DTP program. If your
publication is to be a straight newsletter composed almost
solely of text it could well be adequate, and you could
always use good old Letraset rub-down lettering, available
for a lew pounds a sheet from your local stationer's, to make
your headlines
The first thing to do is decide on the paper size you are
going to use for your publication. Most photocopiers use A4
paper, so that seems a sensible standard. In case the paper
size conventions confuse you, the important ones are A3. A4
and AS. Quite simply, if you fold an A4 sheet in half you get
an AS sheet. A3 is the size of two A4 sheets joined on their
long side.
This means that, given access to a photocopier which
car do reduced size copies, you could reduce tour pages of
M each to A5 size and they would then all fit on one double-
sided sheet of A4 folded pamphlet -I ike in halt. This is a very
common format, and has the extra bonuses of reducing
reproduction costs, saving trees, and seeming
to smooth out jagged edges in your graphics.
LocoScript standard text looks fine when printed |
half size, but superscript and subscript text can
be hard to read at 50%,
All you have to do is print out
your text and, with
some scissors
DIY DTP
Beginning a short series on giving your desktop
publishing that professional touch
and glue, paste it down onto a master sheet until everything
fits in the right places. Then take it off to your copy shop who
will do the rest for a moderately extravagant tee.
Enlargements or reductions are fine as long as everything
on the page is reduced or enlarged the same amount.
Difficulty with printing in columns, lack of large text sizes
and absence of graphics could be a problem on a more
ambitious project though - which is where one of the
currently available DTP packages come in.
Each of them is like an electronic layout pad: you can cut
OUTSIDE
INSIDE
ir
@
®
A How ts put imir f>ages on a double-sided A4 sheet for folding
WP^
one of the graphics pictures out of the supplied library, make
up your headlines using the supplied large text fonts, and
read in text prepared by LocoScript or some other
wordprocessor into columns. You can then move these
items around until the layout looks right, print out your
masters (you need the benefits of the 8000 series dot matrix
printer, of course) and get copies made.
The cost
If you have decided that simple LocoScripted text is not
enough for your mega-publication then the first thing you
need is obviously your DTP program, the cheapest being
Database's Desktop Publisher for £30 ish. Other packages
available are the Electric Studio's
Newsdesk International (E40),
Mirrorsoft's Fleet Street Editor (£60)
and - just out - AMXs Stop Press
[ESQ). Obviously the best thing to do
Is to scour the advertisement pages
of PCW magazines to find the best
offers from mail order companies.
There are three ways of
duplicating
/!/?
Ready, set, go
For around £10 per page you can
gel LocoScript documenK
properly types$t - you send in
your disc and gel back your
heaillines and teirt set out
magazine style. One company
providing this serace is
Thameslinic, Tel. 0753 863356.
8000 PLUS 43
DTP
your publication - photocopying, stencilling, or 'proper'
printing done by your friendly local High Street printers.
Which you choose depends on a variety of factors, mainly
the number of copies you want to produce, and how much
money you have at your disposal: on a basic level, if you're
taiking tens or hundreds of copies a photocopier would be
cheaper than printing, but printing gels much cheaper if
you're thinking in thousands, and of course the quality can
be much better. If you have access to a stencti duplicator,
this would be the cheapest option of the three.
Probably the quickest and most convenient setup is to
photocopy. Typical charges for double-sided A4 copying
would be something like 20 p per sheet plus VAT, and for
double-sided A3 30p plus VAT, though, so if you're doing
more than a few dozen copies this could prove expensive
Costs at a glance
SorrM rough jfgures to fwlp you decide llie tiest way of producing your publication. If you're only
planning on making 30 copies, obviously photocopying wilt be cheaper than printing, and vice
versa it you aim to make twenty thousand. You can also ttecide how many pages your effort can
aftofd to have - a folded, double sided A3 sheet makes four M pages; folded A4, toor AS pages
OUTur
LocoScrlpt or
The Desktop Publisher £30
Newsdesk Internatlonai £44
Fleet Street Editor £60
Stop Press £50
Video digltisereiM
MasterScantTO
PHOTOCOPYING
Double sided A4 per sheet 23p
Double sided A3 per sheet 3Sp
DUPLICATING
Second hand stencil duplicator £20(^-500
Paper £3,50 per 500 sheets
Electronic stencil cutting £3 each
PRINTING
Double sided M:
50 sheets: £20
500 sheets: £40
SOOO sheets: £90
Photographs: £5+ each
Folding: C3 per 500 sheets
Gram masala
Paper tximes in various weighls
(and hence Itiicknesses) The
standard ligure tor photocop/ing
use woukj be BQQSm (80 grams
per scpare rreirel Business
letterheads tend to be on
lOOgsm, which is slighDy thickef
and tends lo smudge m the PCW
dot matnx pnnler
44 8000 PLUS
Old faithful
An option not to be overlooked is the trusty old stencil
duplicator, your Gestetner or Roneo; the quality of output, if
done properly, can be very good. It is possible to cut stencils
directly with your PCW printer - the 9512 daisywheel will cut
stencils no problem, and even the trusty 8000 dot matrix will
work as long as you take out the ribbon cassette before
printing as normal onto the stencil; however, you could well
find that your printer head gets clogged up with wax
eventually, and while it's possible to clean it with a bit of WD-
40 or alcohol, general opinion seems to be that it doesn't do
the print head much good.
A better way of getting your material onto stencils is to
print out your pages onto normal paper complete with
graphics, line drawings and so on, and then get a stencil cut
electronically from each page - an advantage of this is that
you can reduce your masters with a photocopier first. As
long as there isn't too much sofid black on the page they will
reproduce the original dot matrix printed output very closely.
Your local office stationer should be able to do this for
around £3 per sheet
The great advantage of stencil duplication is cost. If you
have access to a duplicator then virtually your only outlay
will be for paper - and you can get a ream (500 sheets) of
A4 copier paper for around £3.50.
The cost of a reasonable second-hand duplicator can be
anything from a couple of hundred pounds upwards - tor
large scale use a recommended model is the floneo 865,
which goes for around £500; if you want a new duplicator
you'd be paying around three times that amount.
The disadvantage ot stencilling is that it can be tedious
and messy setting up the machine, running off all the copies
yourself and then folding and stapling the lot if required, but
it saves you money.
For large runs - many hundreds or thousands of copies -
proper printers will tie able to print your publication relatively
cheaply (by a process called offset lltho), with very
professional looking results. Fifty copies of double-sided A4
would cost you about E20, but five hundred under £40; and
five thousand would be around £90, only 2p per copy!
Professional printers can offer various extra options. You
could include photographs, or have a variety of ink colours
for a tenner each. Either of these would make a simple
newsletter look very impressive.
In the picture
Of course, apart from the text the next most important thing
on your page will be illustrations. DTP packages all come
with a variety of clip-art' - stock symbols like road signs,
paper boys, aeroplanes etc. which can be added onto your
page to liven ii up. These images may be of limited use, and
the quality won't be sufficient to make the graphic the main
point of interest on the page. Often the simplest thing is to
leave a gap of the right size on the page and then glue on
the picture just before you go off to the copy shop.
In general, any simple drawing in black in will photocopy
perfectly well, but photographs will not. This is because
photos are made up of shades of grey and can't be
reproduced on a printing machine which can only do black
ink. The standard trick is called 'screening' - look at any
newspaper photo and you will see it is made up of dots.
Each dot is solid black and the shades of grey are simulated
by making the dots larger or smaller.
A A ptiolQ prinled wilh and witboul 'screening'.
'^ouf printer can do the screening of any photos you are
using for a once-off cost of around £5 each, after which the
screened copy can be photocopied normally. Copies of
unscreened photos always look ugly with unnaturally high
contrast and large blacked-in areas.
An alternative Is a 'video digitiser', which enables you to
take a picture from a video recorder (hence TV pictures, or
even shots you've recorded yourself if you have a video
camera) and produce a version made up of dots which you
can use in your publication. Digltisers will set you back about
£100, but shop around for package deals.
Digitised pictures give variable results - simple, high
contrast pictures come out best, and complicated ones with
lots of shades of grey worst. The advantage is that they'll
photocopy well directly, although though the quality of proper
screened photographs is so much better. If you are doing
photos In a serious way it would be better to forget the
digitiser.
IvIasterScan (reviewed on pages 56/59 this month) Is a
device which fits on to your print head, scans pictures or
graphics, and stores them on disc. The results can be cut
and pasted into your publication just like normal graphics. It
would be good for using material from books or magazines
but photographs or things on shiny paper don't come out too
well. The same pros and cons apply for this as tor the
digltisers.
NEWSDESK
INTERNATIONAL
♦ Simple to use, with on-screen
selection of options
♦ Easy mixing of text &
graphics
♦ Full A4 page composition
♦ Selection of typefaces and
font styles in varied sizes
♦ Allows input of Loco script
files
NEWSDESK INTERNATIONAL
SOFTWARE
complete with the
ELECTRIC STUDIO
LIGHT PEN
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ONLY £69.95
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AN UNBEATABLE ,
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^mv Ilirifitmas
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FREE XMAS SNIP ART
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PURCHASE OF
NEWSDESK, MOUSE OR
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(Do you ntedfutp in deciding
w fiat your requirements arc?
Our new shoun-oom is open for
demonstrations , \,....or wfiy not
attend our jirst ever 'Evening ,
Siminar in January?
for fud details - tefephone
0462 420222
andasli to spta^to $mr Thit&ps
Add these great optional
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NEWSDESK system for
even better results'
. ■■ V j.'^^j'j'jV^j'j'j'j'j'j'jVf^fj'jViVyjVXr.'-.v.
VIDEO DIGITISER
For newspaper-style
results, this is the
ultimate graphic input
device!
£99.95
FONT UBRARY
12 more fonts for
inclusion in the
Newsdesif publishing
system
£14.95
SNIP ART DISKS
6 disks containing digitised graphic
images to brighten your publication !
1. General 2.General S.Natura
4.Travel 5. Leisure 6.5port
1
£14.95
ea.
^r
THE ELECTRIC STUDIO
PRODUCTS LTD.
Unit 8, The Cam Centre,
Wilbury Way,
Hitchin, Herts. SG4 OTW.
Telephone: 0462 420222
Please rush me by return:
NEWSDESK INTERNATIONAL
@ £39.95
NEWSDESK WITH LIGHT PEN
@E69.95
NEWSDESK WITH MOUSE
@ £89.95
(Each of the above includes FREEXmas Snip
Art disk)
Name ....
Address ,
VIDEO DIGITISER
FONT UBRARY
SNIP ART
.,@ 14.95each
Please indicate which Snip Art disk(s) you
require. 1 2 3 4...,. 5 6
.@E99.95..
.@ E14.95.,
Post Ck)de ,
Tel. No
Please debit my AccessA/isa Card No:
Expiry Date
Signature....
cd
o
1 result, that re
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a variable sue
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could use a v<
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THE BUSINESS CENTRE
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SnrGIMer - 20.00
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Tau Ceii II (Academ,) I7.S0
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NEVER MAKE MITSAKES
If you've ever tried to run a BASIC program, you ought to be reading these pages
The best way to ensure that a listing will work is to type
it in right. This is not quite as simple as it seems
especially with one that seems to go on for several
thousand lines, but it is worthwhile trying to be as accurate
as possibie while you are typing it in.
The first tip is to type everything in lower case (small
letters). BASIC automatically converts all command
keywords (PRINT, IF, NEXT etc.) into capitals, so that
means that phnf will be changed to 'PRINT when you LIST
the program to the screen, but if you have made a mistake
(like pirnt' for instance) it won't change. One warning
though: any text in quote marks ("" or ") should be typed in
as it is printed, ie. upper case if necessary, or the program
may go wrong.
When the listing is completed always save It by typing
SAVE and an imaginative file name in inverted commas. If
you don't save, the listing will be lost when you go back into
CP/M.
Remember that if you make any cfianges to the listing
(correcting a mistake for instance) this also has to be saved
using the same filename or the old mistake will stay on the
disc. Getting into the habit of saving corrections can save
you hours of frustration.
Find the error
The first time you run the program the chances are it will
break down. Sometimes it won't even start and it's a "back-
to-the-drawing board" plod ttirough the listing looking for
mist^es. If it does go wrong the ctiances are you will gel a
helpful error message, which sometimes even gives you a
due as to what is wrong
The most common to begin with is 'Syntax error in line
...'. This is quite a useful error message since this means
As you will no doubt know there are never any mitsakes in the
program listings in 8000 Plus, Well nearly never. And as also you
know we always make things so clear it is almost impossible to get
things wrong.
And yet strangely enough virtually everyone finds themselves
staring at a blank screen or an unhelpful error nrtessage the first time
they try to run a BASIC program. Here are one or two tips that might
just save you several hours of heartache and hair-tearing as you try
to find your BASIC mistake, whether it is a program written yourself
or one you've copied from a magazine.
that BASIC has noticed a typing mistake in that line which it
just cannot get over. Check this line carefully. What appear
like little details (for instance the difference between a colon
(:) and a semi-colon {;) are pretty important to BASIC and
even a comma missing can really upset it.
If you get a syntax error BASIC automatically puts you
into 'edit mode', allowing you to move about the line using
the cursor left and right keys, deleting and making your
changes. When you finish press (RETURN] and re-run the
program.
If you get a different error message you will have to do a
bit more work to track the mistake down. If your typing error
is not serious enough to make the program stop as soon as
it comes across it, then BASIC will struggle on until finally
some gross inconsistency arises that makes it fall over. It
won't report any error until it finally stops, so the iine number
Follow that variable
One of the most difficult mistakes to find Is a
prcAlem with variables. These are words or
letters often ending wilh a $ or a % that can
take on a ditfetent values while the program Is
running - If you type them into BASIC in lower
case letters they will stay In lower case when
LISTed out, as opfiosed to the main keywords
which will be capilallsed.
If you are writing the program yourself,
especially a short program where space is not
important use names tor the variables that are
self-evident - anount, naiB$, totalt etc.
II you are typing a listing try to work out
what is supposed to be In each variable.
Variables are set up might be set in a
statement like line %xl or through an INPUT
statement - IHPOT "Hhat is your
You can check what the current value ot
the variable Is at any moment by stopping the
program and just typing at the 'Ok' prompt
?miiiber« or ?naiw$ Or Whatever the
appropriate varlatile is {'T is Just an
abbreviation tor the PRINT command).
Alternatively you can temporarity add extra
lines into your program to print out a lew
variables at strategic points.
Up will pop the value that It holds at thai
time. \i it gives a value o! or just a blank line
at a time when you think it should have some
value you must have mistyped the name
somewhere. Read through the program
checking every time that variable Is
mentioned. Often the mistake is many lines
away.
It you have a text editor program like
New Word or Protext, you can use it to create
and edit BASIC programs. This means that
you can use the 'Find' command to look for
occurrences ot a variable name, do bulk
renamlngs etc. Make sure whenever you save
your program Irom BASIC that you add a ,A
after the rtame (eg save "FESD ", a). This saves
the program in ASCII torni so that your text
editor will be able to read it.
8000 PLUS 49
BASIC
Errors you have loved
Here aie examples of some ot the most
common error messages thai BASIC can gh^e
you, and hints on what lo (io to recti ty matters.
..Ux (rror in M
liONT Cffilt(a7)^-E'tCHRI27)t"H
Syntax Enoi - there Is a typing error In this
line thai BASIC will just not accept. Vou go
stralgtit Into edit mode ttecause 8ASIC
t NisMleb in 3»
it 30
tf mnm COTO MM
Typa mimtatch - you are trying to use a
numeric value where a siring value Is required
or vice versa. Check for i and % being mixed
up In the variable name, and for quolatian
presumes you will be changing It. In this case
there should be an opening bracket in the
second CHR$ {27)
marks being missed out around strings. Here
K>rd{, which is a string, has been used where
BASIC expects a number. II probably ought to
be nocii - a numeric variable.
Suhscrip
Subscript out of range in 40
Iist:«
sort'iOPDI "0',Z,"sorf
Mxline^NXlinilltLDffi WNI ll.lineKiuxUne)
Subscript out of rang* -this is often
caused by a mistake in a DIM statement which
sets the size of an array, so check tor a
mistake there first. Can also be caused by a
mistake fn a FOR loop which goes round more
times than you OlMmed an array it uses, In
this example the variable was wrongly defined
in line 10 (Un? Instead of lin»$) but it didn't
show up till line 60.
Ihiupeirted NEXT, tSND or RETURN - BASIC
can't understand why you have the command
mentioned In that line. These tie up wHh the
commands FOR, WHILE and GOSUB
respectively so it means that these are
missing or something has gone wrong trilh
them. Check the lines with the FOR, WHILE
and GOSUB statements in them too.
VEXt or vwD missing - BASIC has found a
FOR or a WHILE and can't tie it up with the
suitable NEXT or WEND to end the loop. Make
sure you've got as many FORsas NEXTs, as
many WHILES as WENDs.
50 8000 PLUS r
quoted as 'wrong' may not be where the real error is.
Most of the common messages and their causes are
given on the example listing show/n in the box. If its a short
program just type li-St and the listing will appear on the
screen. If it's a long program just pici( al>out 25 lines (about
a screenful) round about the spot where the trouble is (for
example, you can list out line numbers 200 to 450 by list
20o-i'^0) and look there first. If you (ind the problem in line
260 type EDIT 260 and you can edit it.
When copying out listings, make sure you don't mistake
lovKer case 'Is for '1 's, or capital 'O's for zeroes. A mistake of
this kind won't usually cause a Syntax Error, but will make
your program go wrong in quite unpredictable ways.
Debugging your own programs
There are about another 100 error messages that you can
be hit with which sometimes make sense, so they are
always worth reading carefully. If you have made a mistake
you can't find immediately it is invaluable to print out your
listing on paper - using the command llist. In a long
program with a lot of GOTOs and GOSUBs it is easier to
follow on the path of the program on continuous paper rather
than finding the right bit to display on screen.
Quite often your program is running but it just won't do
what it's supposed to do. Remember that at any time you
can press the [STOP] key - it will say 'Break in." and the |
line number if you feel that things are going wrong.
Have a look at the listing round about that point using the
LIST command. 'Vou can continue the program from where
you broke into it (type cont) as long as you haven't actually
edited any lines.
Your program may refuse to go to a GOSUB or GOTO or
it may follow a path that you hadn't expected - all shown up
by the line numbers on screen. A simple mistyping in the line
number of a GOSUB command could make it "crash
through" (technical term there) and miss the GOSUB
completely or a simple wrong line number in a GOTO could
cause untold confusion.
If it doesn't work as you want it is worthwhile whistling up
the services of TRON - your friendly Trace On utility. All you
do is type trom before you run the program and this
wonderful little facility lists on the screen the numbers of all
the lines as you use them You can stop TRON by typing
TROFF.
You can also use TROI^ within a program - if you've
narrowed your problems down to a particular area, put a line
with the TRON command before and another line with
TROFF afterwards, and you won't get deluged with rubbish
from parts of the program you aren't interested in.
Stop that at once
If you are worried that the instructions in a particular line
seem to be being ignored another trick is to to edit the line
(EDIT 2000 or whatever) to insert : stop at the end. The
next time you run the program there should be an error
message "Break in 2000". If there isn't, start being
suspicious. And if it does stop it is a good chance to check
the variables (see Follow that Variable).
Don't forget that you can add in extra lines to print out
diagnostic messages like "now at line 140" wherever you
like. This is the whole point of the BASIC line numbers - to
put a line in between line 100 and 110 just call it 105 and it
will be put in at the right place. To delete it after you've found
the problem, just type 1 05 and press [RETURN].
We can't promise that following these simple rules will
ensure that you will get every listing to work but even trying
to get it to work will greatly increase your knowledge of
f^flallard Basic and it can be very satisfying when you
get it to worfi. ^A
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To run the system you just switch on, toad Money Manager Plus, seiect a data file, make new entries in any order tfrat suits you (or amend existing entries) produce a
lew reports to check the current financial situation, and then save the data for the next time you need to use it. You may have any number of data files (or sets of
atwjunts) and store several on one disc. A data file contains 1 2 months of dala. wnich may be rolled forward montn by month.
Up to 300 laparate transactjons may be enter ad per month.
Each antry oxisists of:
• Th» day 01*1 emon«i, eg. Z3«irt June
• Atoum number, one of up to 9 defired by you B uiil yixir dicuimlancss
ig 1 . Bardays, 2- Visa, 3. Cash elc
• Chetiue or reference number, eg A9C1 23
• Class code, one of up lo SO definet) by you tj suit yotir tiroumstancos
ed ol . Ovsrtieads, ol - Rent. o2. HeaWjghting. o2= Stalionery etc,
or nnO. Motwng. m). Petrol, m2. Road Tax, m3- Mainnenanco elc.
• OetcfifHive text eg, Tai Rebate". "Rsthgefalor". «»e.
• Dptxriel lingls-characler mark a> en extra identifier, eg, b- binineu, (>• private, elc
• Aoccum reconciliation maftier,
• The arrnuri ot the trarisKSion, debit or cfedil.
• Opliotwi VAT inrtcator. eg exempt, lero. Ml or part rated. » VAT It not lalavant it may
bs ignored.
You may (elect otegories ol enmes atxxirdiog to account, cJass arxJ marV (eg all bank
eooourn entries, or aii mototing eitpenses, or all cash acooom bosioefis eitpenses etc.)
and prodtx:e reports on ttie screen or pnnter as loHows:
• Detailed statements coveting any pstioa, itiQwing siKhqtjalilyingtransatilionviiiih a
running balar>c4.
• CXarterty VAT siaiemenis showing mput and output transactions setjarately wnh
qoiumis for exempi, lero rated, VATable, VAT paKi and gross amounis, and a
summary wiiti all therelevant ttstais.
• TaWesshowfigltieioialamjunts tor each dasemont) by month, and lot* tor
thewtviiayaar,
• Tallies showng »ie totals lor each cjaii in eadi account.
• Tables stiowng Ihe motrthty maximum, minimum arxl average balances, tumciw
and cash fti3w mont\ by month and for ttie wtwte ya».
■ Bar graphs of any caiegoty month by month,
• Pie Chans oovori nganypeiiodlDr various categories of entry (PC version only) .
□
Plus r Standi ng Orders Entrtes Optionally sorted i nto date order Item search (acil rty
Comprehensive Manual Two sets of realistic practice dala Indefinite free telephone support
Money Manager Plug is a development of the successful Money Manager system, of wfiich over 6000 have been sold It is faster, has a greater c^ractty, and
includesmanyextrafeaturessuggesiedbyexistingusers.TheoriginalMoneyManagerforAmstradCPC/PCW comp uters tsstillavailableatE2495
Send cheque or credit card number or phone for immediate despatch (Pease specify computer model)
Connect Systems
3 Flanchtord Road, London W12 9ND 01- 743 9792 Sam-lOpm 7days a week
VISA
ONTEST
GAMES
SATYR SATIRE
Feminist supporter Tony Flanagan enthuses over the month's new games, courtesy of
Level 9 and Infocom
GNOME RANGER
£14^5 • Level 9 (0344 487597) • All PCWs
I'm one of those rare superbeings of the male gender Ihal
actually appreciates women for tfieir minds and not tfieir
bodies,., honest. How refreshing then to come across an
adventure in which the heroine is - without putting too fine a
point on it - marvellousfy grotesque, even for a gnome. l\lot
only is Ingrid Bottom low abgnomally short but her muscles
make Frank Bruno's look like pickled onions. Now there's a
real woman for you, eh?
As for her character, it's hardly the submissive, servile,
obse<^U(Ous 'yes sir, no sir' type that attracts the average
male chauvinist. The fact that her parents hate the sight of
her tells us much. Indeed, they hate her to such an extent
that they have banished her from house and home.
They haven't just kicked her out, no, they've packed her
off to witch country, certain that she won't be able to make it
back. Such certainty stems from the
fact thai the wicked witch's
cottage lies between betoved
Ingrid and home sweet home.
The object of the game is to
drive Ingrid's parents to
suicide by guiding her back.
The witch is clearly not
someone to be trifled with.
One of her main virtues is her
ability to turn people to stone
by the wave of a wand,
something most politicians
manage just by opening
their mouths. There are, of
course, other dangers,
notably an eagle with a brood
that is rather partial to muscle-
bound gnomes.
The world Ingrid is banished
to reveals typical fairy tale
landscapes - stream, fountain,
marsh and mountain, to mention
just a tew. These are rather baldly
described even when you switch
from brief to verbose mode. The pictures - which purists
might well prefer to turn oft - do aid the text in sustaining
atmosphere An initially cute feature, but one which quickly
becomes irritating, is the repeated insertion ot g' before
every word beginning in 'n'. If this isn't gnerdish then I don't
know what is I
Guided centaurs
Ingrid also confronts a range of weird and and not so
wonderful beings, including a woodland nymph, a centaur
named Cap and a llama. With varying success, such
characters can be put to wodt by carrying out a variety of
tasks, saving Ingrid both time and effort, A pack of dogs, for
example, might help you track down the unicorn. After all,
gnomes are renowned for their weak sense of smell.
As Ingrid explores the countryside, there are a number of
objects which she can exchange at the Centaur's shop for
goods thai she might find more usetui. Indeed, Cap's shop is
stocked with a whole range of goodies, including a bunch of
keys, a black rod and a lamp. Cap', by the way, is
obviously short for capitalist' for the Centaur
demands two items for every one you give him.
The game contains several time-saving
commands, such as goto (taking you to your
./ destination automatically but describing the route) and
T RUN TO (teeing you to your destination but omitting the
^^ description). Unlike most adventures, map- making is not
A?r essential. Indeed most scenes have ihe full range of
geographical exits which it would be very tedious to
map out.
There is something quaint about Gnome Ranger,
which, despite its imperfections, makes the game
attractive, li^ore importantly, its puzzles dangle plenty
of carrots, most of which, frustrating ly, turn out to be
inedible. This is a very addictive adventure which might just
send you gnutty!
PLUSES
Somt good high-level commands
Compelling punles
Light humorous tone
ATMOSPHERE
INTERACTION
MINUSES
■ Scer^s lack detail
■ The adion Is a little repetftlvt
CHALLENGE
VALUE VERDICT
52 8000 PLUS
-SiUb***^
n tf 111 la Ua iW M HTM U |H> 1 RultB !■ inn id
STATtONFALL
£24.95 • Infocom/Acti^sion (01-431
1101/2992) • All PCWs
'And God said 'Let there be form si' and out ot the tormless
void a zillion trillion forms began to manifest themselves,
spiralling into the homes ot every citizen so tfiat no man was
lettwithoyt, not even unto ttie day of his death."
This hitherto unknown eirtrad from the Old Testament
reveals that forms was part of God's original plan for
the universe. The Almighty's reasoning is a little
obscure but it's my suspicion that forms were sent
here to make us bettei human beings - to teach us
ftonesty. humility and patience... or if not that tfien to
give us soaring blood pressure.
But what has all this got to do with Station (all, Infocom's
sequel to Planetfall, where with Floyd your rolDOtic simpleton
fou rescued the planet Resida form ultimate destruction?
Well, tomis are the light motif of this unusual adventure.
At the start of the game you are all set to em bade on a
seemingly routine exercise, to collect a supply of 24 pallets
of "Request for Stellar Patrol Issue Regulation Black Form
Binders Request Form Forms', forms that the DHSS would
certainly be proud ot.
Before you can get anywhere you must find the robot
room and choose your robot by inserting one of the three
lornis in your possession into the appropriate slot. With a
ctioice of three rotiots, including your old friend and
siinpleton Floyd, your decision could be crucial. Helen, tor
example has an unusual but admirably sane habtt of eating
any form she can get hold of. Unfortunately, you need a form
10 activate your spacetruck so she is a rather impractical
choice.
The formless void
Your destination is Space Station Gamma Delta Gamma
777-G S9/59 Sector Alpha-Mu-79 which, I'm told in
renftdence, is just east of Ashby-de-ta-Zouch. To get there
you must key in the correct navigational data, a chart for
wWcfi is on the Assignment Completion Form that comes
with tfie package. What number you key in should
correspond to the time shown top right hand of screen. Key
in Itie wrong number and you'll be left floating in space
without help.
m Onoe you get to the station you find that the Station
bll bcglu J U'AUcirlJit Qf 1 til Bra.: litik irJtlB STJi? ICHFllL .
.SIJ[TI-]nU±
IiIk™ t»t»riictl™ fictlras -- « >>c1«m:« flctltw ■tijrT
CCf^lJhl tcl !M7 by lotcKam, tac. ill I riflltB rBaarvwl.
EliTiaFUJ. ]c 4 t,rfld'vr:t ryt TntecoK In?.
falriH W / Strjil nuA«r «T{H:94
Flg)^ tooks out nt yBU, Tit^^^ ttirougbi jan^ caqivtvr atrvvB. "St* ti>at cojiyrlskt
bdici?- ^ 4^ts m ■ d«ri«nE i:Qn«. -IT ABfOQn %rtn plr^tms tbl* ami, tliv^iLt bin
Tlcji 1c aruHr to.'*
^Illll^ UK PfJLDEB
Thli ilipJi ddvLTfl' IM, for rwcdrdllig and l-Bdd]fi£ li3g «litrl«l. Jt iKCtudlB fl tlAf f*i
liEtH, ftiid b ui^c-QtibrtitM/HpcBktr. At tba asaml, tHi la| raadvr ti all, and Uwr* 1* *
][« HJ* is \.\
>En-Ka Off UK SEADEJ
l^An]lj mlCB iiDH« twnm tba liiQ tmidmi 'I13*t. 12.2.M0I}: SdK kfEpplJIfl JslUr* MV'
k«*is pi]f»rJng; Lbv BlallDB'B fuKi CbIJb. Ki go QUI CD. JO^rld*!' 1 bAV4 HlddfH tlUI lUV'i
fi^li up Ln Lha Itanr" i. BtntagB bin, >]Bpp«d a lm\ an tht bib, tttid dfef^OGlltdd itkt kvt Ir
quia' Thirr Willi 1 b* on joyi-Ljling In aj COia&fld!"
V ■«adbL:t<d vqlM' ie-am tba log tiidar itti^eH* tb< tlnslB hqM '?(arB,' jmd th* r*'!
hiiiDi n iLbi f«itdcr ligbti up
tftsss tss Firtttdi
'LJ7H 12 2.^]aiQ- Raprt^uetliaBi Dcricer Miumb«rt r<porta tbat i^alllAtir 2S !« ari-line
lor PDUiLlH acrvict EBtLiat^B sua or t«o 4*f* 4oi^|]h- ALco, unEi^BTitKiad cr^fi
4ilt«M IB. •wfter to r«BpBDB« to tdlllRftt- Similng FlratBrMptd tg mimicmpt.*
i ■BCbiB.EHdl VQEi?* tram ttal lofl rmtitr irm?Bit% tlu mlofjlB wnrd 'KarB,' anil Lb* ts^l
bilUi t^ tb wma^r UghtE up.
'LL3H.1:?.3.«T30. UnldBBtlf iBd craft LdthMI tn Dbcklttj BBif 1. It I» d alVf l*-C«bl B
nwvl gl UTifmU^r uLlvn otIsIti TIu cnly thia«ft nbcuFd mfB tHa rcHlu of ok Df tb*.
'iLJiH. pud B rBBturvlfu yfTVMid. ril luv* 11 tc tb* BBgbBddd; I'va got « prcbl*B OT
IFPaq: • rfjiqrt thdl « UMd-B,ptCf •l? p <|B«l»ir m tbi vIUBBb DdKd Stiidl^ [llli 1* BtlLlBf
■i]|n«4 ttlroi ED oiTdB LlBEKm Uff9?<ir luvblBHitz i« lovBdclgBtias- *
t Hc^ii]Z«4 VDlcf Irn* IfaB ]Dg rBfldar latcHa thf alnglB irfOfd 'KftTC,* ID^ tbt IM
iMtlrrt m: tbv rBirdar i[|fatB up
flfljrd aedB HI* BpfirovBl. 'fioott tdvB Printer pap^r bkpbubIvi
L^sfUbt B»B<B. tat Ilia ttllO OBt,'
Br« BUla a trauirrBpt of lattra^tlan vitJi CTiTLOfTHU,
Biwi lo 'avi- for
A Captain's log: somettiing is seriously amiss
Commander, his six officers and his thirty-six crew members
have all mysteriously disappeared. Even with your rather
limited intelligence you can sense that something is wrong.
You eventually realise that this routine mission is going to be
far more exciting, and of course more dangerous, than you
ever thought possible.
The captain's log only confirms your suspicions. It details
an increasing number ot mechanical failures and other such
mysteries, coinciding with the arrival ot an alien craft
containing a strange pyramid (presumably not full size).
There are eight levels of the space station to explore and
three sub-modules: a 'seedy village' (Ah I Ashby-de-la-
Zouch!), the science department and the military
department. These areas cannot be entered without the
appropriate validation form, a crumpled copy of which is
hidden in the space station.
The space station is like a mini metropolis with its own
chapel, laundry, gym, theatre, library and dormitories. To
help you find your way around, those nice Infocom people
have mapped out alt eight levels for you and these are
included in the package. Consequently, not only is your
exploration made that much easier but you don't have to
keep stopping to draw your own map.
To add a little tension to the game there are a nam tier of
mechanical welders patrolling the space station corridors. It
seems that since the alien ship arrived they have been
unabte to tell tell the difference between flesh and metal.
There are carnivorous grues too, who lurk in the dark areas
of ships because of their aversion to light, and there's also a
rather ravenous steam pressor to watch out for.
Still, for company there's your old friend Floyd and
another rather philosophical robot called Plato, whose
metallic nose is almost always in a book. Floyd is rather
pathetic as usual. While you're trying to solve the greatest
mystery in the history of the universe, he's more intent on
playing hide and seek.
The usual Infocom goodies append, detailed maps of the
various levels, three rather formidable looking forms and A
Lieutenant First Class Badge which you can wear on your
cap or, if you haven't a cap, then on your forehead.
Stationfall is an excellent sci-fi adventure which seems to
merge the best of 2001 with the best of Star Trek. From now
on, forms will never fill you with the same terror... or perhaps
they will. ^R
I
GAMES
PLUSES
DetailMl nriaps provided
Unusual but humofovs (Misfes
Inblgujng myftery
ATfWIOSPHERE
INTERACTION
MINUSES
■ Doesn't have Kore'rmves at top rifjM
hand o( screen
■ Fonm, pah! Who needs 'an!
CHALLENGE
VALUE VERDICT
8000 PLUS 53
Rstech
nnicro5kil
Training for
AMSTRAD
PCW's and PC's
Can't understand the manual?
Are they 'barmy' or is it me ?
*<5Z>
A
If you're a first time user on f/ie Amstrad PCW series
or the new PC, have a word with us and we can train
you on how to use your new computer.
We can help you perform the fine arts of word
processing, from basic to advanced levels or to gain
a knowledge of computerised accounts.
If you are interested in any of these courses phone
Colleen for more details.
1 73 Basingstoke Road
Reading
Series RG2 0HF
0734 7SS768
•DUST-
L COVERS
THE BBD
DUST COVER
COLLECTION
•DUST-
COVERS
Tailored in nylon fabric that has been treated with an anti-static
inhibitor. Attractively finished with contrasting piping.
Can be washed and ironed.
PCW 8256/ 85 1 2 £11 95
3 piece set in soft grey. Monitor and printer piped in green.
AMSTRAD PCW hot foil printed on keyboard.
PC 1512/1640
£9.00
2 piece set in ivory coloured nylon, Monitor piped in maroon.
AMSTRAD PC hot foil printed on l<eyboard cover.
Please state wlieiher' colour, or mono screen.
PCW 95 1 2
£13.95
3 piece set in ivory. Monitor and printer piped in red.
Amstrad PCW hot foil printed on keyboard cover.
PRINTER COVERS TO MATCH
A range of covers for over 200 printers to match any of the above
covers e.g. Amstrad 2000, 3000, 3 1 60 and 4000, Brother, Canon,
Citizen, Epson, Mannesmann. Star, Ricoh. Smith-Corona, etc.
Prices from £5.00
Please make cheques payable to:
BBD DUST COVERS
The Standish Centre, Cross Street
Standish, Wigan WN6 0HQ
Telephone: 02S7 422968 Ext.32
Fax: 02S7 423909 W^
DBAUR BNOUIRIES WELCOME ^ *°"" *
Ific ^outf,crri Hdrni^phcfc from TECH.SOFT, 334 Slirlinj Kl|liway,
Cl.vcnnont 6010. Wcii AuiLrati^ Tel (t>9t 185 (aS5
STOCKMARKET
THINKING OF INVESTING?
STOCKMARKET enables you to practise invest menl techniques before risking your own money. Start with some money in the bank. Follow the
fortunes of shares that interest you. Buy at the best prices. Watch their progress. Update the prices of your shares very simply whenever you want. See
their new values calculated automatically. Sell at the right moment. See your profits. STOCKMARKET also comes complete with demonstration
data including real price information so that you can plot share prices straight away.
ALREADY AN INVESTOR?
STOCKMARKET enables you to record details of purchases, sales and dividends of shares, unit trusts etc. with automatic calculation and display of
all dealing costs. Current share prices can be entered very easily at any time for an automatic folio revaluation. Values of share prices, indexes etc. can
be recorded, listed and plotted along with moving averages on a logarithmic or linear scale. As well as tracking your actual share holdings you can
practise buying and selling techniques for recovery shares, penny shares, growth stocks etc. with a separate accurately modelled folio for each. See if
your imuiuon is right.
PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
• Record full details of your portfolios of stocks, shares, unit trusts etc.
• Practise buying and selling and acvurately record your progress,
* Up 10 fifty shares per folio. As many folios as you Uke.
• Buy and sell shares with automatic calculation of dealing costs,
* Ten sets of dealinj! costs which you can alter as necessary.
• Record dividend yields and price earnings ratios.
• Update prices and automatically update yields and P/E ratios
and automatically recalculate individual share and total folio values.
* Record dividend payments and total dealing costs.
* Keep records of your cash as you buy and sell.
* List your present folio, past transactions, dividends and cash accounts.
PRICE ANALYSIS
* Record values of share prices, unit trusts, indexes, exchange rales etc,
* Store up to 260 prices per share (equivalent to weekly prices for 5 years),
* List out the prices,
* Plot prices and moving averages on a logarithmic or linear scale.
* Automatic scaling of graphs.
* Easy to read scales for prices and dales (not just week numbers).
* Complete with real weekly prices for several shares for the last few years
(inc FT 30, British Telecom) as a demonstration.
* Use curves as a guide to the t>est buying and selling opportunities.
Comprehensive forty page manual. Complete with demonstration account and prices.
AMSTRAD PC, IBM PC and compatibles £49-95
AMSTRAD PCW and CPC (disc) £29-95
MERIDIAN
Prices are all inclusive worldwide. Send cheque or credit card number
or telephone for immediate delivery by Ttrsl class post.
38 Balcaskie Road, London, SE9 IHQ. Tel: 01-^50 7057
PCW INTERFACE KIT
E55.95 • SM Engineering (0323 766262)
• All PCWs
I expect most people would like to be able to put their
computer to other uses other than word processing. You
may think it ludicrous to suggest that your PCW could be
used to control a compiex industrial process. Nothing could
be further from the truth, the PCW is an excellent machine
lor such applications - 1 have even heard of a PCW that is
helping to keep the worlds most up-to date North Sea oil
production platform afloat!
The SM interface is a box of cunning electronics which
I^Ligs onto the expansion slot at the back of the PCW. The
idea is that you can run programs on your PCW which send
and read data to and from the interlace. The interlace takes
Ifie PCWs signals and converts them into clean digital
pulses as required by electronic devices. The upshot of all
ttiis is that if youve got any electronic devices - most likely
ones you've built yourself - you can now control them from a
program running on your PCW.
A bag of chips
What you get for your money is a strong metal enclosure
housing two Z80 PIO chips, and all the necessary
electronics to interface them to the PCW. The connection to
the PCW is made by a 50 way edge connector on a 15 inch
length ribbon cable. You can safely use it on the managing
director's antique desk without the risk of getting fired as it
has even thoughtfully been fitted with four rubber feet.
Before you can get started you must have some sort of
idea on how the Z80 PIO chips work as they are the heart of
the unit. Essentially each PIO chip gives you two 8-bit ports.
Each port can be configured as an input or as an output port.
So, as you can see, the interface having two PIO's provides
he user with 32 programmable I/O lines,
A disc is provided with the interface containing example
driver software for the PIO's and documentation files on how
to connect up the system and programming hints for the
PIO's This is one area where the package needs
improvements. There is no printed manual supplied with the
interface, all you get is a disc. On listing the directory t found
many files but no documentation on what they were
supposed to do, or on how to run them.
Software to control the module can easily be written with
[If : •,:-T'.*5<
A The SM intertaoe arxl breakout module t)o<!ked up ta test drouit
ONIESI
WORLD
DOMINATION
Julian Sharp discovers a boon for electronics
hobbyists
Mallard BASIC using the commands IMP and OUT.
Alternatively programs can be written in assembly language.
Examples of both are given in the documentation files on the
disc. The interface uses locations 00A8 to OOAF for its I/O.
which are not remappable to other addresses.
Drumming up enthusiasm
To put the interface through its paces I resurrected a long
forgotten electronic drum machine. The drum machine was
connected to the interface using the Breakout module but
Optional extras
Addjilonal rncdules are available for use with
the Interface to aid development work. They
are all constructed to the same high standard
as I he Interface, and connect to the interface
module via a short length ol ribbon cabfe.
An Input/Oulput Test Module (£39.95)
which uses eight toggle switches to simulate
Inputs and LEDs to Indicate the output state on
any one port, so you can test your software
without needing lo hook up your external
hardware. A jumper plug on the module
selects either port A or port 8. The test
modules can t>e daisy chained to enable Iwo
modules to monitor both PtO ports If required.
A Breakout Module (£18.95) which takes all
the lines from one of the PlOs to PCB mounted
screw termtnais allowing quid( and easy
connection to the circuit under test.
Two other modules are planned for release
soon, an d-blt Analogue to Digftal converter
(E39.9S) and an S-bit Digital to Analogue
converter (£29.95).
could easily been wired directly to the interface. In no time at
all my 50+50 watt Low-Fi burst into life with the St Louis
Blues March! Only simple routines were required to control
this device, in fact Mallard BASIC should be fast enough for
most applications.
The SM interface is a must for anyone wanting to put
their PCW to work in areas other than word processing. The
I/O Test Module and Breakout Module should appeal to
institutions such as schools and colleges, but would be an
expensive luxury for the knowledgeable hobbyist who could
knock one up out of a handful of LEDs and a few switches.
Remembered, however, that on its own the interface just sits
there and does absolutely nothing. It's up to you to think o[a
use for it.
PLUSES
Sturdily built units
Many uses tor the imaginative constructor
Easily programmed in Mallard Basic or
Assembly Language
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ Poor documentation, you won't have i! up
and running in 5 minutes
■ Cost ol add-on units for Ihe Interlace a Iftfle
pricey for (he home user
PERFORIVIANCE
DOCUMENTATION
^m
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
8000 PLUS 55
GOODE SOFTWARE PRESENTS
* * QUASAR II * *
THE STATISTICAL PACKAGE FOR THE AMSTHAD PCW RANGE
This package Is lutly integrated wilh ihe Afnstrad printer and allows the user to
choose draft, condensed or high quality output.
1 . DATA EDITOH (Uses full screen editor or line editor).
2. ALPHABETIC/NUMERIC SORTER (ascending or descending order)
3. REGRESSION ANALYSIS (up to 1 way). Ordinal Least Squares Or
insinjmensal Variables with and without an intercept. Twelve diagnostic
statistics are ^so calculated.
4. MATRIX ARITHMETIC. Inversion, subtraction, addlijon, multiplication
iransportalion, eigenvalues (up to order 10)
5. LINEAR PROGRAMMING and TRANSPORTATION
PROGRAMMING.
6. PERCENTAGE CHANGE OVER ANY PERIOD, CROSS
TABULATION (Sway).
7. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS (1 Sdifferent) and PERCENTILES.
8. FREQUENCY TABLES, HISTOGRAMS, SCATTERGHAMS (H-res),
AND BAR CHARTS.
9. CORRELATION, MOMENT AND COVARIANCE MATRICES (up to
orders).
1 0. STATISTICAL TESTS parametrio/nonparametic (22 different) Analysis of
variance one and two way, ttest, Chi-squared test, Kruskal-Wallis test Mann-
Wiiitney test. Huns lest, Sign test. Median test, Friedman test, Wald-
Wolfowitz test,
Homogenely of variance test. Trend test, Kolmogorov-Sfnlmov tests
DistflbuSon fining (binominal, Poissonand Normal)
Correlation [Pearson, Spearman, Kendall, Simple).
1 1 .MATHEMATICAL UTILfTIES. Solution of simultaneous equations and
Quatralic equation solver.
12.0ATA TRANSFORMATIONS Single and Double file (19 different)
13.SPECIAL UTILITIES (Backup, Merge, Insert, delete and Create)
lit.FORECAST Six torecast equations and 4 extrapolation methods. Fully
comprehensive 70 page manual wiSi worked examples.
QUASAR Is used by numerous British Universities, Colleges and Hospitals
for research, as well as by people in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, (iilalta
Nigeria, NetherlandsandHolland.
Putting Your Aenstrad to work July 1987. Vfw Invaluable lorthoso
who are inlB/eslad in or need to use staistksl packages. "
STOP PRESS Amstrad PC & IBM compatible eomputer«. New product
Polartt now available giving all options of Quasar II Ring for delalla.
Ideal lor Sclentlflo Analysis, Education, Management or BuslnM*
Studies etc. £22.95 (all inclusive} Cheques P.Oto
GOODE SOFTWARE, DepI 8P1, a Uandough St, Cathaya,
CARDIFF. SOUTH WALES. CF2 4AW
Tel 0222 4244S
ab Intra Software
■"1
WHEN YOU BECAME
COMPUTER LITERATE
YOU TAUGHT
YOURSELF MORE THAN
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I-Ata Software takes your computer literacy
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which includes VAT and P/P to:
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NEl 4LN
State which Amstrad PCW8256 or Amstrad PCW8512 is in
I use and allow fourteen days for delivery ^F^A I
WORD PROCESSING
Locomail
Locospell
Lacoscript It
Protext
Pocket Pretext
Prospell
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Tasprint 8000
28.95
28.95
17.95
45.95
29.95
21.95
17.95
11.95
11.95
AMSTRAD PCW
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22.95
34.95
47.95
21.95
37.95
35.95
42.95
69.95
74.95
17.95
29.95
77,95
37.95
50.95
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35 95
43.95
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Integrated Accounts
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Modules — each
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OthCT Modules — each
109.95
69.95
36.95
144.95
74.95
38.95
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Sage
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34,95
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With so many organisations trying to sell you on their
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LABEL PRINTER
FOR THE PCW 95 I 2,85 I 2,8256
+SPEEDY DATA ENTRY *UNLIMITED CATEGORIES
• LOCOSCRIPT STYLE COMMANDS *FULL ON SCREEN EDITING
• VARIOUS STYLES OF TEXT * FLEXIBLE LABEL SIZING * PRINT
SINGLE OR MULTIPLE COPIES *FULL SEARCH FACILITY
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Label Printer is not a database adaption but a purpose designed
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£2S,00 including VAT and P&P
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{please ipecrfy model)
NEW!forPCW95l2
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THE
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/ FIRST unjE (PCW and PC versions) £29.95
A simple to use introductory database. Design your own record card on
screen in minutes with up to 250 items of inlormation. Storage is disc
based so it is not limited by ttie memory. A Help Panel is inclLded for
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accessible by name or number. Manual or automatic search opbons and
facility to re-sort the file. Mailmerges with locoscript and outputs ASCII
files. Reports and totals. Example uses are mail lists, stock inventories,
booklists, client information and much more.
C lERi Ii-ULU (PCW) £16.95
A step by step tutorial to gain a full understand ing of the LocoScript
word processor. Many exercises are included to give experience and
confidence. Users soon gain confidence and even create their own
personalised manual!
3 I jPERt I L (PCW) £17.95
A comprehensive yet easy to learn touch typing course based on the
famous Pitmans method. It has been designed to teach the correct
method for the skill of last, efficient typing. The emphasis is heavily
placed on rhythm and accuracy rather than tesbng by speed at an early
stage.
U PtPQT rni /-(PCW, cpceizs
T MIS D I Lnt^L and PC versions) £29,95
A simple to use spreadsheet yet contains many facilities available on
much larger systems. Full maths capabilities including average, count,
max., min. and total. Calculate in both horizontal and vertical directions
to an accuracy of 14 significant figures. Porhons of a sheet may be
copied, printed, saved or loaded with either automatic relative or
absolute reference adjustment Useful for fast and effective cashflows,
home budgeting, statistics and even stocks and shares.
Other Software for the Amstrad
CPC 464/664/6218
Random Access Database £29.95
Powerlul, versatile, fandom access database finds records in seconds
rral several minules. Mutliple pnni lormats, mu 80 & 40 characler te«t
01 bojes in desisb. Extensive calculalions including SIN, LOG. COS, etc.
C[i<ii[irehensive search and sorl lacililies. 40 litlds per record.
Instant Access Utilities £29.95
A lull range of utilities including random access, sector editing, error
handling, etc. Simple RSX commands interface directly with ttie resident
BASIC. A powerlol EXEC command allows a BASIC statement lo bf
execoled Irom withm a program to evaluate calculations
'^Thfs.isn^XicaT/d features »«^"'
. people «*^ . - ""— :^.-^„„b«,t^'e
m
■
>
MINERVA SYSTEMS,
69 SIDWELL STREET, EXETER,
DEVON. EX4 6PH. Tel: 0392 37756
ONTEST
A TTie MaaerScan
interface box showing the
contrast corrtml knob.
What's the
point?
MBasutingthesiieolte>:tin
'pdrits' is an obscure printer's
Kinvenlion. One point is in lact
'In of an incfi, and the point ^ze
indcalesltLehieightofltK
fetters. Thus 1 2 point !eit is
rougNy Vi' high.
MASTER SCAN
£69.95 • Database Software •
061-480 0171 • 8000s only
Whenever you see an advertisement for a graphics program
on the PCW. the screen always seems to be displaying an
elegant photograph that would take you vi^eeks to create
line-by-line for yourself. Of course, these pictures aren't
created by hand but are digitised' from a photograph.
What could be better than being able to take images from
any drawing or illustration you have available? Up until now
the only option v/as to invest £100 on a digitiser interface for
the PCW, and even then you had to have a video recorder
or camera which probably costs more than the PCW itself.
MasterScan comes along at a very opportune time. With
the sudden burst of activity in the desk top publishing market
a large number of people are now looking for good quality
illustrations to brighten up the pages of their newsletters or
fly-sheets. Even the best of clip art' files get boring pretty
quickly.
MasterScan is a remarkable piece of equipment that
many PCW users will find invaluable providing a low cost
method of creating graphics in their PCWs. It 'scans' any
pictures using an ingenious magic eye' scanning device that
fits to printhead of the PCW printer. This scanning head
leads into an iternterface box which fits onto the expansion
port at the back of the PCW.
To scan a picture then, feed the sheet to t>e scanned into
the printer as though you were going to print on it, and start
up the MasterScan software. The printer runs as if it was
printing although the only action is to move the scanning
lens along the line and incidentally martt a dot at the end of
the line - it's a bad idea to use valuable original artvirork
since it can get a nasty printed line down its right hand side
unless you remove the printer ribbon while scanning.
It is not a particularty quick job as the scanner ains along
each of the 256 lines on the screen, but it can look very
effective. The maximum area that can be read is about 8" by
eVz", and the scanning process takes atwut 12 minutes for
the whole page. If you only want to scan a small area you
can interrupt the scanning once the bit you want has been
recorded. The quality of the result depends very much on
the type of picture that you are starting off with.
MasterScan merely creates a dot-for-dot screen image of
the picture you gave it. It isn't clever enough to recognise
that certain patterns of dots happen to correspond to what
humans recognise as words'. If you scan a page of text,
don't expect a word processable text file out of MasterScan
- there are devices called Optical Character Readers' which
can do this, but they aren't available on the PCW.
The true fax
Ttie adverts for MasterScan proudly ann&unce
ttial not enly can It scan pictures but In
conjunction with a modem It Is an Ideal low-
cost office tax machine. The Idea Is that you
use MasterScan to scan a page of text anil
diagrams, ttien with the aid of your
communications software and mod«m transmit
the page to someorw else.
White ft does not detract very much from
(tte product as a whole, It Is certainly
overstating Ihlitgs to suggest that It could or
would be used as a lax nnchirte.
Anyone seriously considering lax
transmissions ttas to take several tielalls Into
account, tt Is not compatible with the general
GT Fax system and can only send pictures to
another PCW wllti ttte same software. You will
also need to buy sonie communications
software, a serial intertace and a modem to
send pictures down phone lines, whictt all
pushes the price up.
However the main argument against using
It as a lax Is that It does not handle text
parilculariy well. Text under 20 point slie (fust
sllgtitty smaller than llie headline of this box)
comes out distorted and normal newsprint and
book text would be completely illegible. The
body text ol this page Is 6 point text.
As taxes are often used for transmitting
pages of tett and are seldom used lor sending
Illustrations that do not have some sort ol text
this Is extremely limiting.
INSTANT
Scanning a lew sizes
oflext
▼
HBn'i iflnw tsHI Inl 4 polnb t>p«
Hbtb'b Kuma IBXt In Ifi point lyp*
HAFB'f sQnn« text jn ^B point type
Here's some lexl In 20 potnt type
Here's some text In 22 point type
Here's sonne text In 24 point type
Here's soniie 26 point type
Here's some 30 point type
A.»^ -»- " o c ,.-^i^ ^ type
ype
type
IMAGES
ONTEST
ri
Alec Rae puts you in the picture
about a new way of getting
illustrations onto your PCW
Fade to grey
MasterScan's main problem is that tine PCW screen displays
everything in black and white (well, black and green to be
exact). Shades of grey on photographs and so on therefore
will be either black or white - there is a threshold at which
darker shades are taken to be black and lighter shades
white. The MasterScan interface box has a contrast switch
to allow you to control this threshold, but it can mean that on
delicate pictures you need to spend a long time getting the
contrast just right for best results.
The pictures that scan best are line drawings or any
illustrations with strong contrasts. Photographs with a lot of
grey in them can come out quite unlike the original.
The other problem area is the quality of the paper that
you use. Shiny surfaces do cause problems to the scanner
and a lot of detail can be lost from a gloss finished
photograph or magazine page. The manual suggests that
you photocopy the shiniest papers. This would also be
useful for any illustrations you are nof sure of as a
photocopy tends to convert greys to black and white, so will
give you a fair idea of how the illustration will turn out and
could save you some time.
The program takes account of the fact that there are a
number of images that just won't reproduce properly and
allows you to abort the scan at any time and asks at the end
if you want to keep it or not. You can save the pictures as
disc files (they each take 24k of space on the disc) and then
read these files in to art programs or desktop publishing
programs.
What format?
A great selling point with tulasterScan is that it can be used
to create graphics in different formats It can be used with
Fleet Street Editor. Newsdesk International. The Desktop
Publisher and the brand new Stop Press from AMS. It can
be used with Database's own drawing program MasterPaint
where you can tidy it up, embellish it. merge it with other
images or change it atiout generally.
Being menu driven the program is extremely easy to use
and there are no difficult commands to remember. Even
operations like moving from one user group to another is no
problem with MasterScan.
There are some neat features like the ability to reduce
the image by half or blow it up to six times normal size.
Again the success of this depends very much on the
individual image quality. You can also decide the width of
your illustration by setting the scanner head to only go
between specified column positions on the printer.
Of course it is vital to have another program to export it to
as you can do nothing with the pictures in MasterScan -
other than sit and admire them. It will not print out the
scanned picture for instance. However, it provides an
invaluable source of suitable illustrations for anyone wanting
to use graphics on the PGW, ^M
Tale of two
heads
The version of MasterScan we
reviewed would only wnK with
pte-l 987 PCW pnnters - nemi
ones have an unsurtaUe piinl
tiead, as illustrated in last
modtti's news pages Dataliase
say tliat they have got round tliis
by designing another litment lor
newer prim heads allowing ihe
scanner to piggyback on. We
haven't seen the new unit but
are assured thai it will ibe sent
out as standard with all
MaslerScans.
PLUSES
Simple mettiod of providing really suitable
graphics.
Suitable tor all desk top publishing
programs
Contrast control very uselul
RANGE OF FEATURES
EASE OF USE
MINUSES
■ Quality of scanned text Is poor - no good
lor lanes
■ Has problems with llluslralions with a lot ol
grey In tt»m.
PERFORMANCE
DOCUMENTATION
8000 PLUS VALUE VERDICT
'
8000 PLUS 59
AMSTAT & STATMODE
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Educst^nsj quBntily discaynli
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ALIVE!
The LocoScript add-on software they could not
destroy!
Ansiblelndex and AnsibleCheck are back, fully compatible
with all current versions of LocoScript.
These programs are indispensable to professional writers,
academics, researchers (etc), using the Amstrad PCW
8256/8512/9512:
Ansiblelndex - fuWy featured extraction indexer for LocoScript
text documenu. Alphabetization by letter or by
word. Correct page references, Indexes WORDS,
PHRASES and INVERTED PHRASES. Full editing
of the index is possible, plus page-proof compati-
bility. (Includes AnsibleCheck. and other useful
programs.) Price: £49.50
AnsibleCheck- The only trouble-free LocoScript word counter.
No special formats, no commands to learn, no esti-
mates. Fast and reliable. Looks for repeated words
too. Price:£l9.S0
Both packages inclutfe the notorious GREASE, which we originally
wrote for fufi, but which people keep finding new uses for ... If you
wish to know more about any of our programs, request our current
information sheet.
Our software is accompanied by an operating manual written in plain
English. The price shown includes VAT, delivery anywhre in the word
and full after-sales support. No hidden extras!
ANSIBLE INFORMATION (Dept D8)
94 London Road
Reading
Berkshire, RG I 5AU, England T<|: 0672 62576
ALL OUR PRICES INCLUDE CARRIAGE & VAT
HSV COMPUTER SERVICES LIMITED (8(K)(»
23, Hampstead House, Town Centre, Basingstoke, RG21 ILG
Continuous Stationery
. _„. . v«= T}ar( all t'dees
Dust Covers
CPC 6128 2pce Set =£7.30
t'CW 8256,' 85 12 3pce set
=£8.95
Strong water-resistant,
anti-static nykm l.
Crey vvith Royal Blue piping.
L} 5" X 11-60 GSM Micro-Perf all edges
Labels 4,0" X 1,5" (1 across
X 1.5" (2 across)
X 1.5" (^ across)
250
£5.25
£7.25
500 1000 2000
£4 9S £8-* ^14.95
£13.5U £25.50
Labels 4.0"
Labels 2.75"
£2.95
£3.25
£3.75
2.75
4.95
£5.50
£6.50
£4.50
9.50
£10.50
11.95
£8,50
^^^^^^^ f7 7Q 5=£12.95, 10 = £24.95
AMSOFT 3" disks 1 = £2.70, ^
Prinfpr Rihhnn<i
Disk Storage Boxes
^„ Hinged Lid -lO cased
^ LockabJe AMS20 cased
^^^^EXTRASTO PAY
Joxes ~ ->
£5.95
£12.95
Credit Card _
I Hotline (0256) 463507 Faxline (0256) 841018
Printer Ribbons
I'C W S5 12/8256 Black £3.95
f'CVV 8512/8256 Colours £4,95
PCW 9512 Black £4.95
DMP 4000 Black £6.95
DM1' 201K).'.3(XX) Black £2.95
* Colours Available are:-
Red, Blue, Green, Brown,
Orange, I'urple.
{ Acc8ss|
READING FOR PROFIT
ost writers are compulsive
readers, hopelessly
addicted to ttie solitary
pleasures of the printed word, (I
keep waiting for our dear
government to realise tfie perils,
and plaster the country with posters
saying FtCTION REALLY
SCREWS YOU UP, or warning of
the terrible diseases you might get
from sharing paperbacks.) Most
writers, sooner or later, have a
glorious moment of revelation when
they find that one can lounge
around reading books and gef paid
turn...
One of the reasons for my being
a bit dogmatic about manuscript
presentation - see several previous
columns - is that when not at the
keyboard, I intermittently suffer
ttirough all too many grotty
nianuscripts. If you want to lounge
around earning ridiculously tiny
sums of money, try the humble
calling of "publisher's reader".
Unsolicited plug
Y«j can team lots about ffte pittalls
of novel-writ Jng from Chrlslopfter
Derrick's Reader's fteport (Gollancz,
1969) 'Wise advice from a
publisher's reader wtio's seen it all.
te the date Indicates, computers do
not feature; ttie warnings are still
horribly tnie. Try ttie library.
The background is like this.
Each year, far too many books
appear. Those which are pubiishec"
are the mere tip of the iceberg, the
thinnest possible skim of cream
atop the vast churning
unpublishabie torrents which pour
with terrible fluency from tens of
thousands of Amstrad PCWs.
Editors haven't time to read all
the unsolicited stuff from unknown
authors: they reject some at a
glance for being handwritten, typed
single-spaced on translucent paper
with no margins on either side, or
sabotaged by an inept covering
letter. ("This is a totally new Sci Fi
idea. Its all about a huge Meteor
weighing tons of light year's which
is going to smash right into Earth's
orbit... OR IS IT^?!'") The odds are
that, while the full-time editor gets
down to the serious work of
copyediting some new Jeffrey
Arcfier coprolite into readable
shape, the brilliant novel by
unknown you will be farmed out for
a freelance reader's report.
The lowly reader is thus
subjected to the real dregs These
haggard beings gather sometimes
in pubs (where, in deference to the
complaints of alcohol-hating 8000
Pius subscribers, they only ever
drink slimline tonic water) and swap
anecdotes about legendary grot.
One well-known fantasy author, for
example, apparently wrote a book
which has never got past the
publisher's-reader stage, being
called Mercycle and dealing with
the exploits of mermaids on
bicycles. Gorblimey.
Transatlantic traumas
Before you all burst into tears at the
thought of my sufferings, I'll admit
I'm lucky enough to report mainly
on writers who are publish able -
usually the book's been sold in the
USA, and a British outfit wants an
opinion. You see some funny
things:
A high-tech author whose name
is synonymous with glittering
computerised SF still bashes it out
on an old manual typewriter, the
typebars so out of alignment that
you'd think the writer was using a
pneumatic drill with the other hand
LocoScript may have its
limitations, but (after the
embarrassing early bugs of Loco 1 )
there's never been any trouble with
page numbers. It was an author
whose word-processing software
alone cost more than a ROW who
turned in a script with un-numbered
pages....
Anticipating the paperless
office, one author sent in a disc
rather than a printout. When the
postman bends an ordinary
manuscript, legibility is rarely
harmed; when he tries to bend a 3"
PCW disk, it usually puts up a
successful fight; unfortunately this
disk was one of the limp 5 '/*"
monsters favoured by IBM and the
PCI 51 2. Through brilliant computer
skills I eventually recovered the file
with the novel, only slightly
creased....
So much for anecdotes -
though my favourite computer-cum-
publishing story is too good to omit
despite having nothing to do with
the toils of readers. Famous author
X had the bright idea of arranging
for the little printing firm up the road
to typeset straight from his disks,
thus saving the publishers
staggering sums of money!
Presumably the little typesetter
wasn't frightfully efficient, since the
unamused publishers later worked
out that the book had cost them
more than boring old conventional
typesetting would have.
This was also the author who
made his alien speech authentic by
cunning use of Exchange: he would
write "rabbit", say, throughout the
text, and when the story was
finished the word processor would
change every mention of rabbits to
the more science-fictional sm'eerp.
Please do not all imitate this
technique
What the poor sod of a
publisher's reader hopes for is
legibility (new ribbon, high quality
print, and don't use 17-pitch).
literacy (which lies between you,
your conscience, your dictionary
and Fowler's Modern Er)g!ish
Usage) and liftability (a typescript
weighing six kilograms must be
separable into bite-size chunks for
actual reading). The read-through
by a conscientious editor or
publisher's reader is the one time
you can rely on the undivided
attention of a professional at whom
you are not actually pointing a gun.
If the reader has had a retina
detached by the attempt to follow
faded text, and is also worrying
about blood poisoning thanl<s to the
jagged gash torn in one hand by
your amateur job of stapling, he or
she may not be totally impartial
when reporting on your
masterpiece.
On the other hand, clipping
£1 00 in used fivers to page 94
(which Brian Aldiss told me could
help with the Booker Prize) doesn't
necessarily work either. ..
Tlie token Loco 2 mention
A correspondent bewailed not being
able to persuade Loco 2 to print a
tieader or the last page of anything.
Later he tiapptiy reported that a newer
version of the program had fixed this.
I doni know whether they've cured
the points thai still bother me: (a) no
screen image" prim with
[EXTRA]+[f>TRl, presumably intentional
since its not in the Loco 2 manual; lb)
some accented characters are
scrambled when files are converted 1o
ASCII. You might expect the accents to
be lost when the accented character
isnt in the Amstrad ASCII table, but
certain characters are changed to
something completely wrong, {{a} was
certainly fixed a while back.
Locomotive will swap any old versions
for new if you return your master disc
tor replacement. It's free lor real bug
fixes, a fiver if you just coiled
upgrades - Ed.)
8000 PLUS 61
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LISTINGS PLUS
IHE PERSONAL TOUCH
Here is a practical way to use your PCW to keep track of the
rrotiey in your many bank accounts. It allows you to enter all
tfiectieques or debits and any deposits (why is it there are
always rrore debits?) and keeps track of tfie current balance
inafile on yourdisc.
When you run the program, the first thing you are asked
for is the number of the account you want to look at - this
means the short number 1 , 2 or 3 printed by the account at
ttis top right of the screen {not the 7 digit number in your
cJieqje book!) followed, as always, by [RETURN],
Next the current balance and most recent entry date is
shewn for that account, and you are asked whether to go on
or not - type Y to make additions, or N to look at another
account or exit.
Follow ttie prompts by first typing in the date Next you
»e asked for all debits (or cheques cashed), Type in the
amount of the debit, and the program will carry on in a loop
asking until you are all done. The program keeps track of the
total with depressing accuracy. To indicate that youVe
fmistied entering debits, just press [RETURN) without typing
anything.
After this you are asked if you have managed to scrape
together any deposits to cover all these cheques. In the
lil^ely event that there are none just press [RETURN] to go
on You are only allowed one deposit per day, but if you're
clever you could alter the program to have the same
Bank
Statement
Brian F Wright
continuous entry system as for debits by using the method in
lines 110 and 120.
You can decide on the names of the accounts you want
to keep track of by adjusting the text in line 20. Remember to
enter the name in quotes - "Swiss" or "Cayman Islands" and
the number. The program will print these on the screen as a
memory jogger for you.
At the end the program prints out a statement of affairs
with your ingoings and outgoings and the new balance, and
you can move on to gloat over the vast amount of money
you have tucked away in your deposit account.
The final balances are written out to a tile for use next
time you run the program - the individual debits and credits
aren't recorded, but at least this way it isn't too much of a
bind to keep an accurate check on your bank balances.
RSI Brian F Vrtght
10 PRUT CHB»<27)+'B"+CaE»<27>+"H*
20 PHIIT TAB<60)"CnBEEIT-l-;PRIIT TAB<60>" DEPOSIT- 2* :PB IK TAB (60 > "8/800-3 "
30 OPEI ■H",l,"PlliICE-,14: FIELD 1,4 AS BAL»,10 iS DS
40 IIPOT "iCCOOrr ITJKBER "jBiL*; CBI l.BALl:
50 a=CyS<BlL«): CLOSE
60 IF CyS<BAL4)<0 THEI GOSUB 200
70 PRIIT:PRII7 "Last Dote "jD*
60 PHirr 'OTIRTIIG BiLAICE " tJSIIG ■X####.##";a
90 IIPOT "Do you want to continue 'iUSS: IF UPPER* (LEFT* (AISS, l)><>'y THEI 180
100 IIPDT "DATE " ; date*
110 llPtrr "CHEQUE/DEBIT ¥ALDB";b:IF b=0 GOTO 130
120 l>=b+c;c=b;COT0 110
130 IIFHT •DEPOSIT ";d
140 f=o-c+d
150 PRirr OSIIG -Start Bal £ ff###, f# out £»««.» dep £##*#.## bal £#<»#,##'; a, c, d, f
160 OPEI •R",1,'FIIAICE',U: FIELD 1, 4 AS BAL*. 10 AS Dt
170 LSET BALS=IIKS»<f):LEET D*=<iate»; POT 1, BAL%: CLOSE: CLEAR
180 IIPOT "Do you MOnt another account" jAISi: IF OFFER* (LEFT* (AiS», 1) )="T" GOTO 20
190 BID
200 PRIIT "YOU ARE OYERDRASI BT",TABC60) OSIIG •£####,##" ;a:RETOim
07ca
0667
1AC3
ofet
07(1
OAiF
am
mi
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0390
1]3i
06FS
OS ID
0307
UU
OEFi
1526
1697
02CB
tSES
8000 PLUS 63
LISTINGS PLUS
Handwritten type
64 8000 PLUS
Kelvin Stott
Now this is really personalising your PCW. Have you ever
felt annoyed t>y the style of ttie screen lettering, or trustrafed
ttiat you can't define your own special display characters?
This listing takes all the lower case letters on your PCW
screen and turns them into beautifully flowing joined-up
writing.
Although only 15 lines, the listing is packed with a fair
amount of detail. It would be wise to check the program
carefully (using the 8000 Plus Basic Checker program if
possible) before running as even a small mistake on ttie
data lines from 70 to 1 50 could have some drastic effects on
your character set. And do save the program (as described
in the 'How to type in a listing' box) t>efore running
it, since a mistake in lines 20-30 could
make your PCW lock up. (If this
happens, alt you can do is turn off and
restart.)
As soon as you run the program
you will see the results - BASIC'S
messages witi come up on the screen
in handwriting, "Vou will need to run this
program every time you start the PCW
up, since the character set changes are
not permanent and are forgotten when you
turn off (and, it follows, turning off and on
again is the simplest way to revert to normal
characters). The new characters cannot be used
for LocoScript.
Unfortunately this beautiful script does not come
out on the printer but it does give a whole new look to the
green screen, tt you're really desperate to get a hard copy
8256/851 2 users can of course get a screen dump pressing
[EXTRA] and [PTR]. You will be amazed at what a little
listing will do.
The upper case characters are unchanged, so when you
are writing a program for yourself you can mix ordinary
upper case words with pseudo-handwritten lower case
comments for effect.
How it all works
With a little ingenuity, you can easily adapt this
program to create any characters you like
on your screen. If you are writing
your own games programs
you might set up
the '2'
r^r ■■■..■.■■v-:'5-!".';
A Ttie doi layout tot I tie 'handwrinen' vefsion ol the ctiaradet 'a'
LISTINGS PLUS
character to be a Space tnvader, for example.
The essence of the program is in lines 70 to 150 - tfrese
contain the magic numbers which define what pattern of dots
tte PCW displays on its screen when you tell it to print a
particular character from 'a' to 'z'.
Each letter on the screen is n>ade up on a grid of 8 by 8
*)ts-you can see them it you look really closely. The
pattern of 64 dots for each letter is stored in the PCW's
memory.
The numbers in the DATA statements from lines 70 to
150 are in fact 26 sets of 8 numbers, each set of 8 numbers
(Wiring the dot pattern for a' to 'z' respectively. The first
eighl (0, 0, 30, 1 02. 1 98. 205, 1 1 B, 0) make up the
handwritten letter 'a' for example,
To understand how the figures are arrived at you have to
refer to the little diagram at the bottom left. Each number in
Itie sot of 8 which defines a letter's shape corresponds to a
row of 6 dots. The first number is the top row, the last the
bottom row. Each column is given a number (1 , 2, 4, 8, 16,
32, 64 or 128) as labelled.
Once you have drawn your character on
the 8x8 grid, you work out what the code number
for each row is by adding up all the column
codes in that row. So if you want to put one
dot in the top right hand corner you
would put in a 1 tor the first row
code. For a dot in the top right
hand corner (1} and one in
the top left hand corner
(128) you would use
1 29. To fill every
dot in a row
you add
all the
y
Longer programs needed!!!
starting from next month, we're changing the
look of Listings Plus. As well as continuing
the very papular short listings we do, tfwre
will be one major listing going over two pages,
With notes and suggestions on how lo
Improve it.This means we are looking for well
written programs of 50-100 lines which we can
use. Of course, since we still want shod
listings loo, the longer ones will have to be
reaffy special!
If you can program you could earn hard
cash and instant tame by having your program
printed in BOOO Plus. Give instructions on an
accompanying sheet tor using the program,
and it there are any useful modifications that
readers can make by simple edits to
customise the program, mention those too.
To submit a listing you must supply:
1. Aprlnloutofthellsling;
2. A disc on which it is saved;
3. A stamped, addressed padded bag for
its return;
4. An explanation of what it does and how
to use tt;
5. A signed statement confirming that the
program Is your own work and hasn't been
submitted to anybody else.
Send your listings to Listings, 8000 Plus,
4 Queen Street, Bath BAl iEJ. Piease allow up
to 40 days for return of your disc - the listings
are assessed in a batch once a month.
values together and get 255,
With this knowledge and a bit of experimentation you
could modify the program to adapt the character set to suit
yourself. In line 40 you see that the DATA values in lines 70
to 150 are being used to redefine the screen versions of
ASCII characters 97 to 1 22 (ie. 'a' to 'z'}. By changing this to
71 to 96 you could adapt your own character set for all the
capital letters. Or you could leave the text as it is and
redefine some lesser used graphics keys such as U2, { and }
to be your Space Invaders,
10 HEIORY UEBFFE:FOR hex=AHC070 TO &HC0d8:S£AIr pk:P0O hez,pk;:IEXT hex ISiO
20 DATA 243,62,129,211,241,62,130,211,242,175,95.103,22,184,58,153,192,111,41,41 1100
30 DATA 41,25,17,154,192.235.1,8,0,237,176,62,133,211,241,62,134,211,242,251,201 HOF
40 FOR char=9r TO 122: POKE 4eC099,char 0D7fl
50 FOR rDw=l TO 8;RBA1> binary (row) : POKE MC099+row, (binary (roK) ): lEIT row 1C70
60 cl=»HC070:CALL cl:IEIT char 0fl£8
70 DATA 0,0,30,102,198,205,118,0,48,48,96,108,198,199,60,0,0,0,60,102,192,193,126,0 1108
80 DATA 6.6,12,124,204,205,118,0,0,0,124,216,240,193,126,0,15,24,24,24,252,159,48,224 126B
90 DATA 0,0,124,204,204,127,56.224,48,48,96,124,204,205,198,0,12,0.12,24,56,217,14,0 1233
100 DATA 12,0,12.28,120,153,62,240.48,48,96,124,228,217,206,0,12,28,24,48,112,153,14,0 USB
110 DATA 0,0,119,127,214,199,198.0.0.0,124,102,204,205,198,0,0,0,60,110,102,231,60,0 HAfi
120 DATA 0.0,60,102,102,239,96,192.0,0,124,204,216.247,60,112,0,0,125,102,196,195,192,0 12C2
i30 DATA 0.0,124,102.198.143,56.0,48,48,96,124,192.193,126,0.0,0.102,102,204,205,118.0 !2i3
140 DATA 0.0,102.102.110,251,48,0,0,0,99.99.214,255,108,0,0,0,119,156,24,153,110.0 1123
150 DATA 0,0,102,102,204,127.56.224,0,0,60,102,204,135,60,112 OCDD
8000 PLUS 65
LISTINGS PLUS
Find/Exchange
Richard Cox
Being able to do simple text editing operations on a BASIC
program can often be invaluable. The norma! BASIC system
only allows you to make ctranges on one line at a time,
which is hardly very hi-tech.
You can o( course use a word processor to edit
programs, but this can be inconvenient: here is a way to do it
all without ever leaving BASIC by having your own
Find/Exchange program.
This can come in useful in a numt>er of ways. For
instance if you are testing a program which has tots of
LPRINT statements you can end up wasting a lot of paper
and time. The best thing to do is change all the LPRINTsto
PRINTS while testing, and change them back when the
whole thing works.
This listing is custom built for just such an occasion. First
save the program you want to edit in ASCII form with the
command save "filename", a. Now, Supposing you have
saved this Find and Exchange listing as FINDEX.BAS, type
RUN "F INDEX". The program asks you for the name of the
program you just saved, so type whatever you chose for
FILENAf^E earlier.
You are now being asked for the string of characlers to
be changed (say PRINT) and the string that you want to
change it to (LPRINT). Each line of your program is printed
out on screen and each time PRINT is mentioned it is
highlighted with an impressive device made of up-arrows.
(When you need to write an up-arrow in line 190 as you type
the listing in use [EXTRA] and U.) You then have the choice
I
10 E»-CHB»<27): H»=BJCH-; lfl=CBKl<10>; cbti=BifJ'! cls»=E»+"l"
20 rvl'Slfp"; OT»=i»+"q": upt=E»fI": DEFIIT i zi YIDIH 255
30 PRirr cl5l;M
40 IIPDT -Enter progr«B Haw: ".prngS: TJtlTI
SO IF DPPEBi<GI0RT»(prog»,3)K>'BAS- TBSI progj-progj*" . bna-
60 nPEI *l".l,prog»; OFEI "o- ,Z, "K: te«p. Ml"
to LIIE IIPUT ■ aid string: '.ai
80 Lire TIPDT * new strlDg: ".nt
00 FBirr
100 WHILE KJT BOFll)
110 LtlE ireOT ri,lDl
120 FE[IT Igt
130 pllCTKdDt.Dt): miLB pOO: GOEDB 180: WMD
UO PEIIT »2.Int
150 veiD
160 CLOSE 1,2
170 LOAD •X:tetlp.%$i'
ISO peiTT up*;up>
190 PKirr LHFT»aBt,p-n;lft;STBIIOiaEI«o»>."'-): PBIIT "Bichange? I/I: ■;
300 IF nFPERi<lIPnTi(l))='T" TKBI ln»=LBrrt (In*, p-ll+ii*+»ID»<lii», ptLEKoll}! p^JJtLWClil)
210 PR in upI:upI:iip»:CUF*a3): FBIIT liiS;ct>tl
220 p^ItSTBCptl, Inl.Qt]
230 EETTJBI
OFll
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of changing that occun-ence or not.
Once all the changes have been made the modified
program is automatically reloaded for you, so typing run will
run it You still have to save the altered program in the
normal way or the edits will be lost when you leave BASIC.
There are a thousand and one other possible uses of this
program For instance, if you want to find every line that a
variable TOTAL$ is mentioned in your program you can
exchange TOTALS for TOTALS (ie. leave it unchanged!) and
the exchanging program will pause at every occurrence.
Your eye might not notice that you type TOTALS where
you meant TOTALS but the machine won't be fooled.
How to type in a listing
The first ttilng to do Is to load Mallard
BASIC. Turn on your PCW and put ttte
copy of tlw CP/M master disc in drive A.
When IIk A> prompt appears type
BASIC and press [RETURN]. After a tew
secorKis a message about Mallard
BASIC will appear on tlie screen, ending
wilti the prompt 'Ok'.
Type In each line carefully, starting
with ttie line numl>e» and ending with
[RETURN]. The four figure number
codes on tf»e extreme rtghl of each line
should not be typed - this Is for
checiiing purposes if you are using the
8000 Plus checker program as printed
last montl).
Be careful not lo mix up capital i,
lower case 1 and the digit i, capital o
with the digit D, colons and semicolons,
commas and full stops.
You should always save any listing
to disc before running It. lo do this type
SAVE "F»osuH~ - you can choose any
name you tike up lo eight letlers in place
of PROGRAM,
When you've finished, type list
[RETURN] and the whole program will
appear on the screen. Check it, and if
any lines are wrong correct them with
Ihe 'line editor'.
For example, If there is a mistake in
line too type edit lOO {RETURN]. Use
the arrow keys and the delete key to
correct the line, and press [RETURN]
when finished. You can delete a whole
line by typing Its number and then
[RETURftf].
To mn the program, simply type wm
[RETURN].,.
But! It's more than likely that no
matter how metteulousty you typed in
the listing It won't work first time. You
may get an error message such as
'Syntax error In 100'. The line numtwr
given In any error message may not be
exactly where the error is, il Is simply
witere Ihe program got stuck. You may
have to took around for the mistake.
Vou can list out the program to the
printer (use ujsi) and check it against
Ihe magazine copy.
When you llnd the mistake use the
line editor as descritied to correct it, re-
run the program and keep going until
you have got It working. Don't forget to
save Ihe final working version to disci
To leave BASIC and get back to
CP/M type S![Sis» [RETURN],
To mn the program another day,
start up BASIC in the same way, put In
the disc with the saved program and
type RUN 'SKXSHt" (giving Ihe name
you savett il under in place of
PROGRAM, of course).
66 8000 PLUS
MENU-MATE
THE FACTS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
Never forget another com-
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The first in a range of key-
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PATENT APPLIED
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Menu-Mate''^ gives simple in-
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and pasting blocks and phrases
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Never lose work because it
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and shows you howl
Shows special features of
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LOCOSCRIPT i COMPATIBLE
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Major credii cards accepted
PUBLIC DOMAIN
PUBLIC
INTELLIGENCE
His appetite whetted by this month's Al feature,
Frank Peters looks at a Public Domain LISP
interpreter.
Artifreial Intelligence - Al for short - is one of the most
glamorous areas of computing at tfie moment. As
this month's cover feature explains, a simple study
of the techniques of Al will equip you to create computerised
accountants, to write programs that understand English
sentences, or to build your own robot.
Well, to be honest these programming feats are still hot
topics of debate in universities. However, there is a lot you
can do for yourself given the right tools. By popular vote (ie.
the Americans all use it), the programming language LISP is
tfietool for artificial intelligence programming. And iucltily
there is a LISP interpreter available in the Public Domain -
yours for the phce of a phone call.
Where to go
If you want to get hotd «>f Public Domain
software, there are two sources which might
interest yau. The CP/U User Group pulilishes
a vast software library, Ihougfi not ali of H is
relevant to PCW owners. TIk sottware itself Is
free, but there Is an annua) subscription and
copying fee per disc. Details from The
Secretary, CP/M User Group, 72 Mill Road,
Hawley, Darttord, KenI DA2 TRZ- please
enclose a large SAL
Anottier soume is PD Softwam of
WInscombe House, Beacon Road,
Crowborough, East Sussex TM6 1UL (ptwne
08926 63298). Again, lltere are membership
and copying charges.
If you are Into the wor<d of comms, you
can download software from Frank Peters'
bulletin board, active 24 hours a day on 04E2
70Q644.
The current PD LISP system is all due to the hard work of
Lanfranco Emiliani. The library of files supplied not only
includes the interpreter program itself, namely LISP.COM,
but the complete source code in Pascal as well {LISP. PAS).
Thus if you are unhappy with the way it has been written, or
you are a born 'tweaker' you can feel free to customise the
What is LISP?
LfSP stands tor List ftocessing, and Is a
programming language based around the idea
that everything - program code, text strings
and numbers - Is simply a list of characters.
There ate computers dedicated to just
running LISP (imaginatively cafled 'LISP
machines'). If you see one of ttiese you will
notice Ifiat the keys ' (' and ' ) ' are very
prominent - you don't need to hold down
[SHIFT! to type brackets. This Is because in
LISP everything has brackets around it. Here's
an example of LISP code:
(CCW (SQ A B) (3BTQ C 1} (SEIQ C 2] )
Tills Is equivalent to the BASIC line:
ir A>eB TSSS Cnl EL^ 0^2
"Why is USP considered a 'better'
programming language than BASIC?" you
may ask. One reason is that there Is no
distinction between data and code In a LISP
program. This can be very useful, in that you
can construct a string of text as a program
goes and then run It. The BASIC equivalent
would be having a string variable containing
"FOR 1=1 TO 1000:NEXT" and then being able
Id run that text as BASIC commands.
66 8000 PLUS
source however much you i ike and then re-compite it into
a runnable program again. {Yes, there is even a
Pascal compiler in the Public Domain too!)
To run the program, simpiy type lisp from
CP/M. There are two ways to enter programs
into LISP: you could use a text editor to
prepare a LISP program and then load
this into the LISP system, or
alternatively you could just type in
the program directly at the LISP prompt,
just as you do with Mallard BASIC.
Capital letters have to be used tor all the
LISP reserved words - for example, names of
functions. 11 is a wise precaution, therefore, always
to work with the 'Caps Lock' mode on the PCW. so
that all letters come out as capitals, but ali numbers as
numbers (full 'Shift Lock' makes 1 234 come out as •■*£$
and so on). To engage and disengage Caps Lock on
the PCW use [ALT]+[ENTER], that is, hold down
the [ALT] key and then press [ENTER].
From start to FIN
Once LISP has initialised itself it wil
announce itself ready for input with
the prompt 'READY'. You can
now type in the sequence of
LISP expressions you wish to be
evaluated on one or more lines.
Each expression must be
preceded and followed with a set
of brackets to allow the LISP
interpreter to isolate it as an \
expression.
When you have finished
command entry and you wish to
see the result of your labours, press
carriage return twice. If you have had
enough and wish to return back to CP/M,
enter FIN followed by two carriage returns.
Along with LISP interpreter is an ASCII
text file called INITLISP which is used to
supply data to the interpreter to alter
the LISP environment. What this
means is that you could add your
own function definitions to this
file and hence effectively
increase the range of
commands available as you program.
The INITLISP data is in fact written in LISP
and so any of the commands available to LISP
can be used in this file, thus making it quite
possible to create a reasonably powerful LISP
environment. Lanfranco has even thoughtfully inctuded an
example o( how you can use the INITLISP file to customise
your own LISP system.
Among the commands available in this PD LISP are all
the usual standards such as AND. APPEND, ATOM, CAR,
CDR, COND, CONS, COPY, DEFEXP, DEFFEXP, EQ,
EQUAL, EVAL, FUNCTION. LABEL, LAMBDA. LAST,
LEtvJGTH, LIST, NOT, NULL, OR, PROG, PROGN. QUOTE,
REMOB, REPLACEH, REPLACET, REVERSE, SET, SETQ,
TRACE, UNTRACE. Functions dealing with numbers have
not been supported, but then again real programmers don't
use numbers anyway.
Overall, this version of LISP is a nice way for you to
discover whether you are going to find LISP a useful
language or not. For really serious LISP hackers, the lack of
more sophisticated functions may prove constraining. There
are of course many fine commercial LISP implementations,
but that's another story. an
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Reviewers descritie TempDisc as "Exoellent .
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Have a go at PCW programming with;
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Accessories for your AMSTRAD 82S6/8S 12
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The new version second disc drive (FD2) for
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FD-2 (2nd disc -dnve for B256) £IIS.OO
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Upgrades have comprehensive installation instructions
CF2 Disks, cased, boxoHO £20,00
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NEW MACHINES
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DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME
PRINTER STAND FOR
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Available now at a special price of just E6.95 plus £1 postage, packing
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TIPOFFS.
TIP-OFFS
The pages with more power-packed tips than a pool room
Snookered in LocoScript? Baulked by your accounts package or spreadsheet? Give yourself a
break with the next few pages! And If you know a trick shot or two, let us know, and you could
pocket £30. Seeing the colour of our money this nr>onth is Philip Barrett of Cambridge who has
hustled two-column printing out of LocoScript...
Two column LocoScript
Yes, it is possible: justified, two-
column print from LocoScript, both
columns perfectly lined up, without
making ASCII files, without feeding
the paper back into the printer or
any other trickery!
The secret is in the layouts.
Create your document and set up
your layouts as follows:
LocoScript 2:
Via ft ^Actions (Document setup)
then f2=Layouts (Change stock
layouts) change layouts 1 . 2 and 3
as follows:
Layout 1 : left margin 5 (t1 ); right
margin 85 (ft); line spacing 1 {f4):
justify on (f6).
Layout 2: left margin 5; right margin
43: line spacing 0: justify on.
Layout 3: left margin 47: right
margin 85: line spacing 0: justify
on.
[EXIT] back to editing the
document and set up two phrases:
Phrase L: space, ten hard spaces
(hard spaces are [+]- space),
[+1LT1, [RETURN], [+]LT2.
JRETURN]
iinfflliHHlllHl^^^^HNffiuflM^^^^^^^^^^^^^HHllHHli^wK^^^^Elll^^Ht
n.Cr(iwk,.."In.li
'•) (41^1 lOgbllKiimcil.SliaMl (-Iittli)*>
a-CrMok, . ."In.liet, .it.h««ii't..
fclSilts
Suwlff
wtr. btniii.
firi^.c«m5il'sjltiis,t(iJuiJd.i.
t8).l)ii.iihH,it.ifJiiilt.i>
Sinnwt
iin.it. tht.RidaiMJiti..
(CEntriHOttd) muiic)FJMi».b«t.r<tr)«'
Phrase R: space, ten hard spaces,
t+]LT3, [RETURN]
LocoScript ?.
Edit the base layout to the same
description as 'Layout 1 ' given
above. [EXIT] several times to
return to the document and set up
two new layouts via the
-*-
^OCAL- NEWS •
■f2=Layouts' menu:
Layout 1 : as 'Layout 2' above
Layout 2: as 'Layout 3' above
Phrase L: space, ten hard spaces,
[jLT, [RETURN], [+)LT1,
[RETURN]
Phrase R: space, ten tiard spaces,
[+]LT2, [RETURf^]
You can check the spaces in
the phrases by 'showing the
spaces' (f7 in Loco2, fl in Loco 1,
cursor to 'Spaces' and press [+]).
Soft spaces are shown as a small
triangle, hard spaces by a
character like the bottom quarter of
a square.
Using the arrangement sounds
complicated but is actually quite
quick and easy. First, [PASTE] L
and type text in until one word
wraps to tfie next line. Delete that
word so you only have one line left;
press [PASTE] R and then (PASTE]
L and type the next line similarly.
Cany on until this, your left-hand
column, is as long as is required.
Now move to the top of the right
column - if you show the spaces as
above there should be a triangle at
its top left hand corner. Place the
cursor on this triangle and continue
typing in your text. When you get
to the end of the line, a word will
wrap to the line below: delete this
extra word, then move the cursor
down to the triangle at the start of
the line below and carry on
similarly.
(f you use two-column print
regulariy it would save time to
create a template with a whole
page lull of [PASTE] R [PASTE] L
combinations which can then
simply be filled up as required.
Note that features such as bold,
italic and pitch changes must tie
retyped at the beginning of every
new line, because the layout
changes will reset them. Also you
can't edit as if you change any line
lengths once the document's been
set up the thing goes haywire.
Philip Barrett
Cambridge
^ storta IS ^,^^^^J'\o build a
Parish ^°""^ i\,P\he Red Lion bus
^ew lit^^^^i^.j' Jed the stop for
_.-„ "Nobody's "seo^ _^^ ^^sident
-^ %rsi.»- T- to -V-tt the
u^Tx it is built.
£20 bin when it is
Pbooe box tury
v.n. the jammed phone box in
Meanwhile the ja»^ centre of
Pig Lane has been at^tn^ ^^^^^„
70 8000 PLUS
Sorting cardbox files
Cardbox is an excellent database,
reasonably priced and simple to
use Its one drawback is that it can't
sort, but regular 8000 Plus readers
will have all the tools they need not
only to sort the file, but to make a
neatly formatted LocoScript
document of the sorted database
as well, which you can even add
balds and italics to.
You will be using (our discs -
IheCP/M and LocoScript discs, the
d^ with your Cardbox database,
arid a new disc onto which you
tiave copied three files. PIP.COIwl.
BASIC. COI^^, and one of the sorting
programs which appeared on page
56 of the September issue of 8000
Plus -call this file SORT.BAS.
Let's assume you have a
Cardbox database of books called
BOOKS. FIL you want to sort into
alpfiabelical order of authors. Use a
format which only shows the fields
you want in the order you want
them. The fields lo be sorted on
strouW come first.
Load up Cardbox, select Use.
and toad up BOOKS.FIL. Type ro
and indicate the .FI^T file you will
tffi using. Type WR and [ENTER], m
until the mode is WS, then type s
until Beginning is displayed, then o
for output file, which you can call
li<:BOOKSWS. Press
[nETURNMEXlT). and G for Go.
Quit Cardbox and copy
BOOKSWS onto the disc with PIP,
BASIC etc. on it with the command
PIP A: =M : BOOKSWS.
With this same disc in the A
drive still, type BASIC sort and
give the file name to be sorted as
BOOKSASC and the result file
name as BOOKSORT. When "Ok'
a^ars you have a sorted tile on
your disc.
Load LocoScript and insert your
new disc. Create a new file called
BOOKLIST and put in tab stops at
Tfie cables between the PCW and
printer are fairly short, and as the
printer port on the PCW is on the
right hand side as you look at it
from the front, the phnter has to be
on the right too. For many
situations this may be inconvenient.
However, if you don't mind
invalidating your guarantee, you
can easily modify it so it will go on
the left ot your PCW. The ribbon
and power cables enter the printer
at the back on the left but then run
inside the housing all the way to the
right hand side where they join on
to the Internals: so. by pulling this
slack out and adding new exit slots
with a tile, you can make the cable
come out on the right hand side.
Interesting characters
There are a number of interesting
characters you can print to the
screen in BASIC to make boxes
and various fancy shapes. They are
produced via statements like
PRINT CHR$(n) where n is a
number between 128 and 157, and
it's handy to Keep a list ot which
number produces which character
pinned up by your PCW. You can
produce It by running the following
short BASIC listing and taking a
screen dump by pressing
[EXTRA]+[PTR] - unfortunately this
is the only way you can get them
printed out; you can't use them in
LPRINT.
10 PRINT TAB (10) "ASCII
character symbols" : PRINT
20 FOR a%=122 to 160 STEP 3
30 PRINT TAB (10) a%; " ";
CURS (a*); TAB(30) a%+l; " ";
CHRS(a*+l); TAB(50)a%+Z;
" '"; CHRS(a%+2)
40 PRINT: NEXT: END
Barry Moody
Camberley, Surrey
run
ASCII eharicUr syiilitls
122
I
123
<
124
1
12S
)
126
-
127
128
1
123
A
13*
If
131
li
132
T
133
i
134
S
13S
If
13e
<l
137
a
136
=
133
ji
140
^
141
'•i
142
n
143
IT
144
*
14S
t
146
m
147
I
148
t
149
1
m
f
151
F
m
■
153
J
154
-
ISS
4
ISfi
1
157
4
158
T
159
♦
16«
a
Ok
each place where a field starts, to
arrange the list in columns of
author, title, etc. Select "Insert text"
from the Actions' and choose
BOOKSORT as the file lo insert.
Your book list appears: use the
[EXCH] command to change all
", " to tabs, and then all " to
nothing. You now have a
columned, sorted list,
A nice feature of this method is
that if the title is the second field, all
the books by the same author will
be sorted alphabetically by title too.
You can now beef up the file with
Loco's bolds and itatics and so on.
Maggie Rugg
Exeter
• Programs are available, free to
Public Domain subscribers, which
will sort Cardbox tiles. One such
program is S0RTV13.COM.
Moving your printer
First remove the six screws on
the underside of the printer, gently
prise off the two parts of the black
plastic knob at the right, then lift off
the top half of the casing. You'll see
the cables running all along the
back from left to right. Ease this
Details of Public Domain libraries
can be found in this month's PD
article on page 68.
Pretext page lengths
If you've gone to the trouble of
setting up an address list file in
Pretext to do your mai (merging run,
you may want to print out the
names and addresses from your
ADDR tile directly onto envelopes.
It is probably best to do the
envelopes in one batch after the
main printing session.
One problem is that no matter
what page length you tell Pretext to
use, the printer still thinks you are
using 70 line A4 paper. It will
therefore roll the platen round for a
few seconds after each envelope,
which is tedious if you've dozens of
extra eight inches out (you may
have to unscrew the bottom half of
the casing), file new exit slots, and
reassenble. Your left-handed
printer is ready to go.
Chris Lilley
Falkirk, Scotland
E *■ ■\
T PCW aooo printer wilh ihe base unscrawwi |
1
■
■
^59^^^^^
File new exit slot here ' CalUe
nomiaily
iins aiorig he'e
Old exit skit
letters to do.
What you have to do is use a
separate command to tell the
printer to change its page length
too. A letter such as this:
>pl 15
(blank)
>0C 27,6'7,15
>sni 35
>rv name addl add2 add3 add4
&name&
&addl&
&add2&
&add3&
&add4&
The 'oc' sends the 'escape codes*
27,67,15 to the printer, which tell It
to treat each page as If it were 15
lines long. Whatever page length
you choose, make sure that the
number on the 'pi' line and the last
number on the 'oC line are the
same.
951 2's will feed envelopes
directly through the printer, but on
8000 machines you may need to
print on labels.
Quick copyfiles
You can copy BASIC programs
from one disc to another without
leaving BASIC as follows: with
BASIC running, insert your first disc
and LOAD lllename. Change the
disc, press the left cursor key, then
press the [+] set key {next to the
space bar on the 8000 machines)
and type SAVE then press
RETURN, The file is copied onto
the new disc. (This doesn't work for
files which aren't BASIC programs.)
Roy W Arctier
Saffron Walden, Essex
8000 PLUS 71
UPOFFS
The recent questionnaire showed that many
8000 Plus readers are stranded on a remote
desert island with only a PCW, inexhaustible
supplies of continuous paper and a 240 volt
SOHz power socket. In the same situation,
which eight tips would you want with you?
This month's anthology Is on malting
LocoScript layouts look Impressive...
1. Hard options
A feature of word processors is their ability to
handle hard and soft cinaracters to keep your
line -breaks neat and tidy. Experienced PCW
owners use them all the time and it's a good
habit to get into.
Things separated by hard characters can't
be split at the end of a line; for example, typing
D,J, Smith near the end of a line could result in
the DJ. and Smith being split if you
subsequently edit the text. But putting a 'hard
space' between the D.J, and Smith (obtained by
pressing the [+] key and then the space bar)
means they'll never be split.
Similarly, 'hard hyphens' ([+] and a hyphen)
should be put in phrases like 'rip-off' and cock-
up' to keep the two haives of the word on the
same line. If you just put a normal hyphen you
could find that editing later on gives you "rip-" at
the end of one line and "off" at the beginning of
the next, which can look strange.
2. Soft Options
Soft characters only appear if a word or phrase
needs to be broken over two lines - for
example, the phrase
"Calcutta/Mad ras/Bombay/Bangatore" is treated
as one word and will be put wholly on one line.
possibly leaving a huge gap on the previous line
and making the layout uneven. The answer is to
put soft spaces ([-] and a space) after each
slash - LocoScript will then bre^ the phrase
after one of the slashes if it needs to.
Soft hyphens ([-] and a hyphen) should be
put liberally into long words in all documents.
Soft hyphens only appear when they are
wanted; if the word tits onto one line they stay
hidden but if the word needs to split they'll come
out. So, whenever you require the services of a
lengthy word, put soft hyphens in at appropriate
places; deoxyhbo(soft hyphen)nucleic acid. etc.
Those hyphens will only show when the word
has to be split.
Normal hyphens and spaces are a mixture
of soft and hard: they will always appear, but
words may be spilt at the space or hyphen if
required.
To sum up;
After initials put hard spaces: I V A Richards
should be l(hard space)V(hard space)A{hard
space) RKhards
After slashes put soft spaces: red/green/puce
Should be red/(soft space)/green/{sofl
space)puce
In hyphenated phrases pui hard hyphens: tip-off
should be tip{hard hyphenjoff
In long words put soft hyphens:
anthropomorphological should be anthropo(solt
hyphen)morpho(soft hyphen) iogical
Desert Island Tip-offs
3. Half-size type
By writing text entirely as superscript seventeen
pitch and selecting half line spacing you can
produce a neat half-size type which is great for
footnotes or the list of directors at the bottom of
youf business letter templates.
For footnotes, the reference number in the
text is entered as [+]SR[+]B[+|P17 (which gives
you the superscript and bold modes) followed
by the number, then [-]SR[-]B[-]P. !n LocoScript
2 you can get superscript numbers directly from
the 'symbol' mode ([SHIFT]+{ALT]+[f7j and then
type the number).
For the footnotes themselves enter
[+]SR[+]B[+]P17[-i-]LSV2. type the number and
then [-)B, follow it with the text, and finish off
with [-)SR[-]P1-]LS.
4. Headers and footers
A good place to experiment with LocoScript
exotica is in the headers and footers of the
template for your business or personal letters.
In LocoScript 1 you get to the headers and
footers by pressing f7=Modes (Edit header) and
cursoring to the first header or footer, then f7,
then f8. and select 'First page differs'. In
LocoScript 2 it's f1=Actions (Document setup)
followed by f5 (Header/looter options) and the
first page only' option. You'll also have to select
One page document; footer first page enabled'
too,
A suggested layout is below. The bullets on
the address line are only obtainable in Loco 2
([EXTRA]+lifl) but in Loco 1 you coukj try
r>a, M/4 SI4W3
omul tlte^Xf Id L
Tt>t» iw-i <tt vEclH* Hd umarfitniH ta«*(ii«» n |fpL<«l eP yfiu h-caIiIh
] DwiuJil It!,. Itoi «|H. filtad Ifl Hiilt«i \m Ibfitti* li im mlji 'lit*bii
Wi !>t* Hrl«l wim tm *iiIdm11« ^afy 4'*;] Illy t« Bti kack^ip* « tb *4*-
Mrk«lltif Dtf*£[(ir
something like [+]SR[-^]B,(-]SR[-]B, The looter
can contain your company directors and can
use the small 'footnote' type described above.
5. These tfiings are centre
testers
For many applications (menus or concert
programmes, for example) a pageful of centred
lines looks very impressive. However, it can be
tedious entering the centring command ([+]C in
Loco 1 and [+]CE in Loco 2) at the beginning of
every line. It is easier to set a centre tab' in the
middle of the page - then at the beginning of
each new line you just hit the tab key and
everything will be centred.
To set your centre tab, m^e a br^d new
layout from the Layouts' menu and move the
cursor to the centre of the dotted ruler line: in
Loco 2, choose the relevant option from the
tabs' menu (or press the [+] key three times)
and your centre tab is set. In Loco 1 , press the
[f5] key. Exit back to the document and off you
go.
6. In reverse
To clean up your screen you can set the PCW
to suppress those codes - the (+ltalics) and
(+Bolds) - by selecting Options {[f8] Loeo2, [fl)
Loco 1) and hitting [-]. However you often find to
your dismay that one of the codes to turn italics
off has been missed out somewhere, making
the rest of the text come out italicised too, A
neat solution is to set up a phrase (under I, say)
consisting of KlIWRV and one under J
containing [-]i[-]RV. Whenever you want to put a
phrase into italics, press [PASTE] I, and to turn
it off [PASTE] J. It's just as quick as the usual
method of [+]l and [-]! but makes all italic text
highlighted, so you can't fail to spot any
mistakes. A similar procedure could be used for
setting and cancelling bold commands,
7. Underlining
Using [+]UL and"[-]UL with your headings
makes the underline very close to the letters:
you can produce a line slightly lower down as
follows. At the start of the heading text turn the
codes' off on the options menu {[f8] Loco 2, [fl]
Loco f ) and type [+]LS '/![+] LPS, Then type the
heading, hit return, and move the cursor
underneath the beginning of the heading. Enter
[+]LS1[+]UL, press space until the line is as
long as the heading, type [+]UL[-]LP and carry
on with the main text.
Instead of [+]UL, spaces, and [-]UL you can
substitute [+]SB (for subscripts), then equals
signs (or asterisks or any of LocoScript 2's
exotic characters) and [-]SB for a variety of
effects,
8. Loco 2 Layouts
Owners ot LocoScript 2 have a couple of
sneaky shortcuts open to them when setting up
layouts.
The first involves tabs. When you are editing
layouts the officially approved method ot setting
up tabs is to press the 'f3=Tabs' key to get a
menu showing Simple, Right. Centre or Decimal
tab. Then use the cursor keys and [ENTER] to
pick the one you want. However, instead if
using the menu at all you can just put the cursor
at the column on the layout where the tab is to
be and press the [+] key. Press [+] once tor a
Simple tab, twice for a Right, three times for a
Centre and four for a Decimal.
The second is for setting the margins.
Normally you would put the cursor at the
position where the left or right margin is to t)e
moved to and use the menus to shift the
margin. Instead, put the cursor right on the
current margin position and use the [+] and [-]
keys. Pressing [+] moves the margin rightwards,
and [-] moves it leftwards one column at a time.
The margin will keep on moving as long as you
keep the [+] or [-] key held down.
72 8000 PLUS
a
W©RLDWIDE
SOFTM/v4RE'
PCWLilun
PCWBuainw*
Lmtaa Home
19.95
DATABASBDESKTOP
SliMM
19.9S
Loooscrpt II
19.96
Cotossus Bridgs
11. 9S
Seus ChN Chat t Modem
aUx Mousot^wktop
199.95
Lrring Dayligha (007)
Hilchh*«reGijideto Galaxy
11.20
65.95
19.9S
Masterfile 8000
37.95
HdlfMot Hi Jim
1S.9S
PlanK
19.95
lufw Gcddau (Adults only)
19.SS
5PREADHSEETS
A. Combat Emulaloc (ACE)
14.95
Sipercalc 11
37.96
Aqsdemy
14.9S
Mg nay Manager +
G RA I^HICS/^U BU SHI NG
29.95
tMrKliciri
14.B5
Guiki of ThwVM
19.95
Mswsdssk fntsmalBnal
37.96
SltrgiOgr
59.95
MastarScan + MasterPaint
68.95
bianCkxjghFocDball
13.95
ACCOUNTSJtNVOICE
awe DavB Snooker
11.20
Sage Pop Accounts
74.B5
raCF2BtankDi.k
24.95
Pop Aocounts Pius (aoo+inv(
1 10.96
FuH nng* el hLA.P. *nd S*b« MftwH* ivnllabta M4m Itrg* dtocount*
jUfpnwinc/udeMT.postapAamfAaiArnginU.K.
Tlw atove raprsiwits only a small prcpanjor o4 iha scttvwre aval labia ai largs discounls.
PlM»«wil*
or phooe Id price* dt software nol advertieeri.
CtmuiH or postal otimrs made payable lo WORLDWIDE SOFTWARE.
WORLDWIDE SOFTWARE, 1 Bridge Slreet, Galashiels. TD1 1SW
TELt 0896 57004
AMSTRAD PCW OWNERS
Transform Your Textfiles into a Valuabie
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1595
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7995
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CamsoltPSILIntACs
99.75
If ^ see anything we sell toeing sokt cheaper etsewliefe ptune u& before you bijy — our
aim is to make our customers happylM Prices Irtclude VAT and pcetaga — orders under
ElO.OO add £1 .00 PrKss valid for 14 days — Telephone for details 9ain-9pm 7 dyes a week
WEST OF BRITAIN BUSINESS SERVICES (DEPT SD), THE FARMHOUSE,
CAPEL TOBI, FFAIRFACH, LLAWEILO, DVFEDi, SA18 SPR.
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AMSTRAD PCW
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fltn I w w wi I I fit
FOR BUSINESS, SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL
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CHECK THE REST AND BUY THE BEST
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incl, VAT«,p+p
REMITTANCE with self addressed sticky LABEL to:-
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{Overaeai add £2.00]
AMSTRAD PCW INTERFACES
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Then this could be your answer te low cost storage medmfri.
An Economy 5 1 M ins 60 iracH Dout>le sided. DouW& ctensrty disc dnve tor your AMSTRAD
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IftlroOuclory offer of only t1 19,95 Inc VAT Plus £2.00 P4P
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Plugs directly onto the PCW
Make that vital connection to modems lor telephone comniiink^tlons, or taking directly to
other computers
Allows use of high-quality pnoters (daisy wheel etc), via the serial or Cenitronic printers.
Piograrr-wise it ts fully compatitjie wiih the Am$tra<i interlaces,
Ttia BS output is via a standanJ Z5 way male '0' connector.
The Centronics output is via a 34 way edgecard connector as used on CPC rarige of
Amstrad machines.
SuppliBti fully cased. Case siie:4,5ins. wide 1 1.5 ins. high 1 3 ins. deep.
CHATTERBOX MODEM
NOT A BITS and PIECES SYSTEM..., THIS IS A DEDICATED MODEM
Rugsdirecliy onto the eipansion pon.
AUTO DIAL and AUTO ANSWER,
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Used 10 connecl to olfie compuiere and printers.
SOFTWARE SELECTABLE MODEM BAUD RATES.
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K.D.S. Electronics. Dept 8, 15 Hill St,
Hunstanton, Norfolk. PE36 5BS
Tel: (04853) 2076
These pages provide a comprehensive guide to the
Amstrad PCW soflware. Published in three monthly
parts, this time it's the turn of Databases, Education,
Communications and Programming packages to (ace
the ultimate test. Weve set out to cover every important
piece of software we could lay our hands on, and to give
you enough information to decide whether they are
suitable for you.
The software listed here represents what we consider
to be the best of the many programs available. As well
as a brief summary of what they do, the main Plus and
Minus points for each program are listed - Pluses have
a n by them, and Minuses a si . Those we think are
particularly noteworthy have an corner flash on them.
To the best of our knowledge, all the programs here
should run on both 8000 series machines and the 9512,
DATABASES
There are broadly two different types of
database, and whicti suits you best depends, of
course, on wtiat you want it for.
Firstly there's ttie simple card index
substitute. For many home users, ttiis will be the
kind of thing you want - all it does is store your
address book or stock items so that you can
easily look them up.
A more sophisticated option is the
programmable database. With these, in addition
to allowing simple card index retrieval there is a
command language which allows you to analyse
the data on the cards. For example, you could
automatically add up the money owed to you by
a If your customers from Yorkshire, To make best
use of this kind of facility, you will reed to be
able to understand a little programming,
although it's not too hard really.
A bit of jargon now. A database is said to
consist of records - this is just like a card in a
conventional card file, with all someone's details
on it. Each record is composed of fields - a field
is a single entry on a card, like someone's
name, or age, or postcode.
The thing that makes a database special is
an index. You might be able to hold your
address book as a simple list in a word
processor document, but i( it gets large then this
becomes unwieldy. An index means that the
database has worked out which order records
should be in, so it can go straight to the one you
want without looking at lots of others first.
The field that you use as your index (e.g.
someone's surname) is said to be a key field,
and can be looked up very fast compared to
"non-key" fields. A good database will allow
multiple keys, meaning that it can look up data
just as fast for a variety of types of information.
Masterfile 8000 _
£49,95 • Campbell Systems ■ 0378 77762'3
A Specially wrinan PCW iiersion ol the successful database sold
on other Amstrad compuiers. It is fully menu contrallBd. and
makes good use ol the PCWs special screen and Iteys. It can
deal wilh up to a separate data files al once, so can cope with
relational d3tal:ia$&s. Scteen (but nol printed output) can tie
elat)otately laid out with tjoxes, lines etc.
PLUSES - MINUSES
[: Wortislasi
D Wide fange ot Lsyoui options
D Handles 'rslatiortal' files
O Planty ot good example tiles
D Can do arithmetic calculations wiihin Its records
s Capacity limited by siie ol M drive - best on an S512
s Takes a while to learn all the leaiures
Condor 1
£99.99 . Caxton Software Ltd ■ 01-251 9494
Condor is firmly pitched at the dBase II markei. Lilte dBase, 11 is
nol only a filing system txjt also a programmtng larjguage Itjat
allows command procedures lor complex data operatiorK. It can
handle very big records — \2? fields — handy for some things
IHie queslionr^aire processing. The user irtteriace is slighlly
ragged, and it fsc*s XBase's ability to indei tiles lor last access.
PLUSES • MINUSES
'2 Very Mexible record structuring and searching
a Better control than dBase over the screen lomal
n CommarW language lor creating data prcx:essing pregrams
a Can handle big databases — up to 1 27 fiekfs per record
u The rnanual is large, well written and urKlerstandabie
s No pfov^ion tor last data access try indexes
s The on-screen prompling information is weak
Database Manager (AtLast)__„
£29.95 ■ Rational Solutions ■ 01-874 412441
R&C&nity re -whasdd with a n&w mifnoaf and a new price, A t
Last is a futl-feaiur^d database that is exceSSenf v3iu& far moneyr
it does wfjat Cardbox can. with much better reporting facitfti&S,
and can sorj too. You can do simpis totsHing ol coiumns, but not
general arithmetic on fields in a record. tt$ da/ms to be a true
raiaijonai' database like dBase it are a me grarxiiosa. but a
good ganeral purpose database - racommended.
PLUSES - MHUSES
D The basic iotm Layouts are gsr^eraisd automatically
D The daia can be ir>daH^ on more than one itsm
D Good screen editing ractliti«$
a Printed reports can indude totals
O Subsets ot records can b« selected using sophistlcaifld njtes
« Manual sofTvetinnes Lapses into compuiefese
» Page dimensions have lo tie specified every tirrw you want to
list thJrigs, even to ttie screen
« Can't do general arithmetic within Fields
Cam base
£49.95 -Camsoft- 0766 831878
Cam&ase is very stror}g or: data sacurity - you can define
passwords to pfotact sensitive daiatiases. ft is drivers by quite an
intricate set of menus, and you'll have to plan )^ur appiicaHon
carafully since the database format can'i be changed once set
up. Generally good for wntir}g applications with.
PLUSES * IHHUSES
a Sensitive data can be protocied by a password system i
a Record structure can be conditional - &„g. "onJy have a
'Spouse' Held if status is 'marrted"
a "Processes" provide for some simple automatic calculations
» Over-protective user Int^riacen which asks for coiilinnation of
almost every command
« Database main attributes are fixed after Initialisation and can't
be changed.
a Doesni have full screen editing of records
» Manual needs an index, and is weak on eicplainrng advanced
topics
8 The (single) key field has to be entered separately to the
record data proper
riN^lMJij»^»nNrMj
dBase II
£99.00 • Ashlon Tate First Soflware - 07357 5244
Tne WordStar of database packages, flecently licensed
'cheaply' for Amslrad machines, dBase II is a madiet leader in
74 8000 PLUS
busin&ss cornputing. As yov msuid expect, this means it is very
powerful bui very compiex. It has a procedure language to afiow
yov to write programs lo manipuSaie ifre data, and you car:
constrvct index (ties tor flatly fast access to Sarge databases, tf
fOi can make the effort to loam it. Hit serve you well.
PLUSES ' MINUSES
D Powerfut command language lorcustoniised programis
□ Indexing facility makes large databases fast lo handle
D Can handle vsrv big databa&es
D "nva data can be lairly easily altered alter il$ entiv
t Manual is daunting {but there are plenty ol independent
books on the maf^el}
B Can'l easily alter Ihe screen record layout
i For an expensive package, you stilt only get 32 fields per
record
■ GanefaHy untriervjty unless you have same prograi^rning
skills
Delta
Wg.gg-Compsoft- 04858 25925
Delia is another oi the itmavyweights. iifte dBase II and Condor,
bt^S untike them is fulfy menu driven. Although the screen
layouts are fuliy fiexit^e, there is a default "quick' layout so you
don'Jhave to sweai at defining your own. It coiitd use better
record indexir)g tscilities, Parttculady goad tor writirig
spplicationSr once you have ploughed through the large manual
PIUSES * MINUSES
D Records can contain up lo 90 liek^. plus groups ot fields thai
may be repealed
D Screen tayout can be user defined, or "Quick" mode used
D Single-page letter writer provides detailed mail-merge
G Pfoces-Ses can be delined, and run Imm user defined menus,
tOf ease of use by others
D Very full and quite readable, manual
ft Only one IJeld may be used for indaiting
« Very big program - a PCW6256 would be hard pushed
■ Some ot the menu operations are unforgivir^ to errors
Pocket InfoStar
£69.50 • MicroPro DR A • 0386 841131
Consists ol h¥o large programs, DalaStar and RepoitSlai (both
avail^s indspefidanliy}. DataSlar is a conventionat datatiase.
Witt! screen card layout and irvlexing. RaportSlar than
ga^iaras the printed output, either Irom DataSlar or CalcStar
liles. PowertuI il you can use them, but (he sulfa is horrHically
oifsrixmplicalad, and the documentation just (/KompreftensiWe.
Kuses • MINUSES
D DaiaStar is a quite good database with Indexrng and
calculated fields.
Transaction piocessing' leature allows cross-referencing of
data files.
□ Can be jntegrated with other l^ocXet pfoducts. eg WordStar.
□ Can take up to 255 fields per record
i Two-voiume manual set is ve^ badi^ organised.
■ There are separate programs to mn lor form design, data
ontiy and reporting.
■ Operation is all by obscure command ireys. A ia WordStar.
Cardbox
t:59.99 • Caxton Software Limited ■ 01-251 9494
As tfle name suggests, this database sets out to be a straight
tepiacement for a conventional card index system, tt doesn't
fxavide any faciStties for totalling up fields in different records,
ixil does provide comprehensive ways of searching records.
Very flexit?le screen layout, set up try a screen editor. Although
a w&ii established pf!3duci, it is hard to see who would want a
daiatiase which cant sort its data into orderl
PLUSES « MINUSES
D Good control over the screen layout of eac^ record (or "cardl
D Can pui any me or prompt text anywhere you ifke on ttie card
□ The documentation mattes Cardbox very simple to use
D Wide range of data pattems chat can be searched for
D Elaborate inde:(es can provide efficient access to data
■ No way to sort the data into alphabetical ordar
i No control language or field totaiiing ladlity
i Skiw to access unindexQid daui
Cardt>ox-Plus
[99 95 . Business Simulations • 0892 8631 05
BiisineiS Simulations are Ihe company who aclually wrote the
sticcessfui <2ardtxix database, and they are the sole distributors
of their entranced version Cardbox- Plus. Disappointingly, still no
fieSd totalUng tacifi^es, but si does toast saning, index listing.
(Jsc rrjanagemant and an autosave feature as extras to
Csfdbox. The ultimate straight card index, if you have the
rjior\ey.
PLl^SES' MINUSES
All the facititios of the very successful Cardbox
□ Cards can be sorted into order for browsing and p>rin|jng
D 'Autosave" will reguEarly store the data to disc in case of
rnishiap
a Rles created by Qardbox can be read
n FuU and good manual, a^thot>gti the tutorial is at the end
n Still no way ol perform irig numeric calculations
n A lot to pay for a Tew frills lo the biasic Cardbox
Smartcard
£59.95 • Focus Computer Sys. • 0272 420109
A conventional card index database which ioears a superficial
resemblance to Cardbox. As ever, you have to defirte your
record format before you can enter any data. Small and fast, you
can son the records, index on up to 3 fields, and do simp^
arithmetic in fields. Can't put background text (eg. lilies} on
records or printouts.
PLUSES - MINUSES
D Good dear screens
□ Plenty of on-screen help
n Fast and high capacity
D Easy to use
» Can't put background text on prfnted reports
ft No way ol exporting data for mailmerge
IVticrofile (Sold in The Micfo Colleclion)
C49.95 • Saxon Computing • 0401 50697
fiAicrofile is a well implemented simple database, dnven by
plenty at menus and on-screen prompts. It's fast and has good
screen control, although it has some si^e resirictions. Microtiie
comes as pan ot a software suite. The Micro CoHectiorr', which
is goad value {Microtiie, Microwrite. MicroSpread, Ftexilabel and
Lock-It}
PLUSES -MINUSES
G The price includes competent word processing, spreadsheet,
tabeiiing and encryption programs
n Plenty of menus and on-$creenpn3mpting
D Very llexiblo formatting for screen layout and printing
Q Numeric fields can be expressions to be calculated
!~ Indexing ts fast and can be on several fields
s Maximum number ol fields per cecofd is only £0
j£ Lrnrtited faciiilies for totalling up fields in a database
DataStore 11
£39.95 • Digita International • 0395 45059
A simple card index type of database written in Mallard Basic.
Although it IS quite slotn in some areas, il does use index liles
which makes relhevat ot individual records quite quick. It allows
calculations on numeric lields and can print out totals anti
averages trom your data tiles. Version II has data export and is
much taster ttjan its predecessor
PLUSES • MINUSES
n Adequate performance on simple files
a Tba manual has a good introduction on enplaining database
Ja/Qon
G Mumeric fields can be calculations, iiKe in spreadsheets
D Good varistir ol printout formats
■ Compieji searches tatte a long time
» No data imporveipon facii ity
Chibase
E49.9S • Ctiiasma ■ 06333 60996
A tree tormat datatiase. whtch means you dont have to go
through the usual rigmarole ot defining your recorri tormat before
you can enter your data. Instead, you just type text into Chibase.
mark the words to tx indened. and it can then treat that tile as a
database.
PLUSES ■ MINUSES
1 1 Doesn't require you to sei up a preset record' card
D Searches through your data very quicl<ly
□ Allows you 10 select up to 50 Keirs for each page of text
a Allows editing of te« without a word processor
« No sample file for you to learn on
Slmf^Mimtiemm
FTzDB
£29.95. Enqclasoft- 0270 81 1868
A free form datat}ase Ike Chibase, but irjstead of typing your
text into the database itself, you create it on a wotx^processor
first of alt. Once done and edited to your tikiryg. you mark all Ihe
word you wan/ to be used as keywords (still in your
wordprocessof} arxi then read it into FT'=DB. Wow you can treat
it as a database., compile indexes, search tor phrases and so on.
ait quite efficiently.
PLUSES * MINUSES
D Easy 10 use
D Versatile retrieval system over severai text Hies
D Inexpensive
D Can move between index and text at will
» No edrttng facilities within FT=OB
First Base
E29.95 • Minerva • 0392 37756
Billed as a simple database for the first lime user. First Base is
quite a competent cheap card index. Ttte manuai is computer
pnnled, arKi weak an diagrams which doesn't help things. One
weakness is getting printed results out of Ftrst Base - either you
settle for crude lists, or you have to create a lempiate in
iocoScripi wtitch is awkward to do. But overall, for simple
applications arwi beginr}ers. it's pretty good value tor money.
PLUSES 'MINUSES
D Can alter the index field at any time
D Simple to use screen editing make data entry easy
a Good value as a simple card index lookup system
p Can easily browse itirough the datatjase picking out a set by
hand
s Manual is badly laid out and generally diffiajlt
m PnxJucing pri nted output is awkward
Magic Filer
E69.95 ■ Sagesolt ■ 091 284 7077
Magtc Fifer is not a true database, tut is a stmctured filing
system. Information is ^lit into a hierarchy of categories, and
tagged with a keyword which is not stored as part of the data
You can browse through the data. I>ut it will get ledkius tf you
firxi it needs updatiryg regularly. Many applications will firvi
Magic Filer restrictive
PLUSES - MINUSES
. ; Good for browsing through data when you don't really know
what's there
c: Data can be declared "read only' 10 protect it Irom alteration
t>y other browsers
a The basic liitng system is weind but not wonderful
a Editing data once in Magic Fflef is awkward
s The documentalion is far too brief
w You can only have oris database per disc
Datafile One
£30.00- Dalargn. 0332 81 0789
T^i^s datat}ase is both a low cost card index system and a mail
merge utility specifically designed to work wittt LocoScript 1. As
a card irxiex. it's quite good for personal use. arxi the mail
merge is simple tyul effective. Goad value far money. The
documentatkjn is m the form of a database on the delivery disc.
PLUSES < MINUSES
D Data can be range checked as it is entered
D Complex masks can be used for searching the database
G Quite fast record access for a low cost package
n Report section (the mail merge) uses LocoScript documents
for templates
U LocoScript text styles (bold, italic, etc) can be used
« The screen editor for designing layouts is a bit too simple to
be effective
» No conditional processing in the mail merge section
» The on-disc documentation is a nice idean tnit cumbersome in
practicer Needs a proper manual.
File Manager
£99.95 • Sandpiper Software • 0978 355333
A datal:ias0 with the power to handle full reiatkjnal appl!r:ations.
Unfanunatety the manual is so badty written that the power is
fta/tf fo gat to. For the money, there are bener systems around.
PLUSES ■ MINUSES
c; Potentially a powertui and flexible system
a 'RAPID' generaiot can produce sinij^e flies quickly
s Appalling rrrant^i
» Poorly customised lor PCW use
■ The lull systenn is very ix>mpiei to use
Matctibox
£29.95 • Quest Internationaf ■ 04215 66488
A cheap, nafnlls card index type database. The manual is onfy
1 3 pages tang, so you had better know you to use a database
before you buy this. You can't customise screen layouts, tyul you
can print labels. Would suit a stmpie booklist or atAiress list, if
you really can't afford better.
PLUSES -MINUSES
O Clear on-screen menus guide you through the program
D Can search for fragments of words m a record
m No controi over screen layout
m Skimpy manual [13 pages) has ainrtosi no examples
s All characters tiave to be upper case
* Only a single index fieU is flowed
M If you type fast, you will lose characters
8000 PLUS 75
Amstrad PCW 9512 (original) ribbons
Having difficulty getting a ribbon for your new
PCW 951 2?
We have tliem ready to send now.
3 (min) for ONL Y £i1.50
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(both prices Inc VAT & P&P
MANNESMAN TALLY
MT80 PC+
PRINTERS
Available for Immediate Despatch
Our price:- £228.85
(inc VAT — Securicor Delivery)
Phone:- 0279 506491
Access or Barclaycard welcome
or send your order to:-
WILUS COMPUTER SUPPLIES LTD
PO BOX 10, SOUTHMILL ROAD,
BISHOPS STORTFORD,
HERTS. CM23 3DN
DOUBLE-JAY Software
CHRISTMAS GIFTS . STOCKING FILUBS • CHRISTMAS GIFTS • STOCKING FILLERS
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The EledDTonic Culi AnBljnii on th« AMSTRAD CPC AtlA and >ll PCW computer
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perzofvf ifXOttnt " MM PLUS Kovembcr I tST >
Complete cash anatysis and bitKJget control. Quick postings, easy updacet. automatic date
sort and balaf>ce calculations. Full and partial statements ^ Summaries, Ideal for keeping
track of all income and eKpenditure,
£l2.95p
CASH BOOK-youMI wonder how you ever miinased wittwut itl
Soiewarc supplied on l" disc snd wiih a coniprehensive manual. Prices include postage and
pKtthg. Overseas orders add £ I . Despatch is usuall]^ widiin A& houni and by First Class mail.
CHRIS TMASGIFTS* STOCKING FILLERS ' CHRISTMAS GIFTS . STOCKING FILLERS
Cheques mnd PoMat Orderw to
DOUBLE -J AY Software and Services
P .O . Box 5 , Red ruth , Com waH T R 1 6 4J j
PIlEASE state COKPUTtR TTPf WHEN OnE>EAllVG
SIGNWRITER/
instant display lettering
from a dot-matrix printer
£49.95
(PCW version)
* Signs printed across or down the page
* Sharp characters . any size - the bigger the better
* Sign revision and powerful formatting capabilities
* Computer-aided design of logos, symbols
* 20 extra fonts <£5.75 each plus disk):
Fair ,^«y Shop S^i etc.
From the ptiilsher PHIlll.
WIGHT SCIENTIFIC XMRSFDKT- ^
44 Roai StfML London SEIO 91T ^^rti, bSii
ion 658 2699
TNi advcnlunMnt prInMd «4-iIzb wIIK Xh'bn SIGNWRITEB
CADMASTER
THE ULTIMATE GRAPfflCS PACK
SUPERB GRAPHICS SOFTWARE
PLUS
A QUALITY LIGHT PEN
Discover the eicihng worid of creeling your own graphics on screen
AT LAST IT'S HEEE
TROJAN'S CADMASTER PACK FOR THE AMSTRAD PCW
rtiofoUPCW
Dwnen '- ihii pock mcludea all (hat 1* isqutichd lor ljj» ai a vary reaAOamble puce
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Iht CADMASTER nwibod
nU cLny wkclniact aimet iw
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Thii powsiful PROGRAM + a QUALITY UGHT PEN and cm INSTRUCTION
BOOKLET m one raaAono^Ly priced package'.
Easy to lua by oU ages for crvating cdIdutEuI pic1ur»s or ttickoical drETwiAgg^
FuH back-up sfrrvicti from the monufacturerB.
TROJAN
ASTROLOGY
for beginners
Teach yourself astrology using your Amstrad
A Starter Pack comprising a simplB pfogfara to calculate a horosct^, an
introduclory txxiklet and 2 sel (-teaching pfograms (how to interpfet the horoscope)
£11.50 cassette £15.50 disc (£13.50 for 1512)
No previous knowledge required
Also many other programs for more experienced astrologers
Please send the Astrology Starter Pack for my Amstrad
464/6M/6ia8/8256/1512. 1 enclose a cheque/PO, UK. for £1 1 .5K15.50iC13.50
(Inc p&p). Outside UK add 50p: or, I enclose a large saa for free caiBtoguB.
Name
Address
ASTROCALC (Depi S) (J Paxrolt Road
Heircl Hempstead. Herti HP3 BER Tel: 0442 S ta09
Terrific Utilities for the Amstrad PCWs
from BRADWAY SOFTWARE
^ Lena Head Plus (PCW8256.8512) £1750 "^
Greats business i personal stationery, letterheads, tabels, posters, elc using powerful on-
screen graphics and over 20 different character fonts. Select the required output formal S
punt all the copies you need I
LsPrinl (PCW8256,e51!) £»950
Pnnt LocoSctipt 1 documems on any dalsywheel, majniaining ALL Locoscnpt features.
More powerful Ihar^ locoscript ?.
WordRndflf (PCWa256.e(BS12 CPC612B PCt S12 BBC) E1 J50
At last — rescue tor Ihe crossword & word game enthusiast I Instani access to 24000
unique words {nolderivaiives), names & anagrams. Add your own words to the dictiorvary.
For lunher deiaifs pisasa sarxf lor a lull csHk/gue. To order, please aM SOp UK and
Burope. £2 00 worldwide aimiail PiP per program.
BRADWAY SOFTWARE (8P)
33 CONALAN AVENUE, SHEFFIELD, S17 4PG
Troion Products. 166. Deilwyn, Dunrani, Swarisea SA2 7PF. Tel; (0792) 205491
THE GOOD SOFTWARE FILE
DATABASES -EDUCATIONAL
Ci00d vatrn]
Cornix Card-Index
e34.95 ■ Cornix Software • 0462 682989
A goal slaixlaid cartitxx m/ith soiling on any liald and a neat
Ittitiife where namas can be antered as Smith IJphnJ hf
anecl indexing but wili print out as John Smith. Selection can
be done in any combination ol lipids on a basis ol words or
tragments of words appearing in records. There are no numeric
tuiKiions and numerals are treated as strirjgs, so for exsmpta
09^56 I9wiltl}a sorted Ixtore £9 and 3-9-87 belore 6 1-86.
fou can prim out any selection of the fields in reports, though
We fonrjal is restricted to one ti&fd lo a iine.
PLUSES ' MINUSES
C Sots on any field
D Names printed in given name-sumanie order
C Selection over combined lields
D Simpie but effecErve
• No imporVeiipon 0) data
■ No numeric c3lculatiori$
• Datas, numbers must be entere<^ carefufly to be sorted
corrBOtly
■ Only one dala tile can be put on each disc
Sagesoft Retrieve
no -Sagesofl. 091-284 7077
.4 tjigh-powsr pacHsge that is retativ&fy ossy to us& with
password s&curity if d&&if&d. caSculatkrns. aotomstic counting
ord&i$Jion of sets of records satisfying giv&n corwlitions,
sopf\islic3lod son and seiect commands, and the atjftity to
change ftje stnjcture of an existing dsrat>9se Ail this is done by
s $et of commands rattJ&r tike a programmirtg ianguage.
Printed formats are rattier iimited tfiougfi and it^e program
ir^ts on usir)g txitt^ drives, making us& on a 6256 ifr\practicat.
ailS£S* MINUSES
D Easy 10 us« lor a powerful padcage
D Advanced sDnjr>g and selection GDnnrnar^s
D Subsets can be written lo fites
□ Can Hjuni or delate subsals with on© command
D Labeliin^'maiEmefging, Toolines included
Can change structure ol exisiinig database
i Impossibly b\g program lor 8256
i Primed outpui limited - musi use mailmefge
l^il
Filen'tlnd
£9.95 • Lenlronic • 48 Efmete Mount, Leeds LS8
A t^idgei database wtjicti aims to provide a simple no-friits
sSfVtce. Programmed in Maiiard BASiC it looks a bit ragged,
buf works taitiy swiftly. If alt you want to do is catalogue a
coltBciion, it couid t>e an extraordinary bargain.
PLUSES • MtNUSES
U ll's very cheap
H^ all the r>ecessary features lor simpie invenrories
a A potential saurce of programming ti^ for Jet&am
prograiTiiTiers
R Amateur and unfriendly way ot vrorking
■ MaKlmuin 8 fields per recort^
K Unhelpful manual full of pcogramming jargon
i CumlQerscKre retrieval and sditing laciltlies
Homeview
E195,44 . Cavalier Load & Run - 0322 721 16
A spedatist database for ttte Estate Agenting business. Costs a
(of, but tt}en an you estate agents stiould be able to afford it
frtum your outrageous commission fees (yes, ttie BtXfO Plus
si3ft nave an recently moved house). You specify required
area, no of bedrooms etc, and g&t aHstof suHabte vendors or
buxers. Works well.
PLUSES ' MNUSES
n Once set up, simple enough lor non-computerate staff
n Makes up matlstiols Irom LocoScrrpt
G Can ad|ust property cat&gort&s to suit
Impresses your cusEomers!
i Tfiere will always be clierrts whi^se requirements don'i U{ yoi>r
system
* Very expensive
EDUCATIONAL
a^Bt basfc course \
lankey Crash Course
E24.95-lansyst- 01-607 0187
A faidy traditional typing tutor, taking you through basic
keyboard exercises. There's a iot of explanatory text, whict^gets
in ttie way second time around. Definitely competent,^ tiut a tjit
boring.
PLUSES -MtHUSES
n Mostly avoids boring letter drills
D Very lull on-screen infonrtation guides you along
n fast' option cuts out some text if il gets repetitive
SI Not particularly imaginati^^ use of graphics
» It doesn't always ensure that the cursor is properly aligned
with the exercise text
:^j^ipv9Fa'p&^ \
2 FingersTouch Typing
£24,95 -lansyst- 01-607 0187
Despite its provocative name, a useful typing tutor in ttiat H
specificafty caters far people who can already get by on
keyboards with two fingers. You are gradually introduced to
touch typiryg. so your speed doesn't drop while you learn. Filis a
necessary slot in Jhe Typirig Tutor rnarkel.
PLUSES - MINUSES
:." Suitable for improvii^ Fwo-finger typists wittiout much drop in
D FuH on-screen instructions
D Exercise text is interesting paragraphs, not letter drills
fi Explanation text is annoyirigty verbo^ in some E&ssons
m \i doesn t always ensure that the cursor is properly aligned
w^th the exercise tevi
Touch "n* Go
£24.95 ■ Caxton Software • 01-251 9494
A very traditional typing tutor, with no attempt at interesting
screen presentation Letter dnils are rigorously pursued, making
for good typirig practice if you can stick to it. A iso tias numt^er
keypad tuition for data entry operations.
PLUSES ' MINUSES
:: Methodical letter drills enforce good pract^^.
; Provides number keypad tuition as well as letters.
; Instruction screens are optional, so can be cut out for speed.
^ Gives a flattering error rate, since it allows you unlimited use
ol the delete key.
m Doesn't lelt you tiow to make the number keypad actually
work en ttie PCW1
ts Bohng use of the screen. Vou need to real^ want to f^m.
Animal Vegetable Mineral • World Wise
£14.95 each ■ Bourne Educational • 0794 523301
Aimed al the younger market. 7- f 5 year oids. Both these
programs work by learning as the cfJild uses them. Think of an
otjject and ttie computer tries to guess it. If it is wrong, the child
is asked for a question which wouid aUow the PCW to be right
next time, and it learns.
PLUSES > MINUSES
rj Can be used as many times as ihe child's imaginaition holds
out
G Performance can t>e analysed by a teacher alter a session
Q As you buikl up a base ol objects and questtons. they can be
saved for reuse
w It needs a lot of typing, her>ce a lot of supervision
« The PCW starts wiih only two olDfects known . so il takes time
to get going
« DocumentatkjR has hardly been altered from cassette- t^sed
versions
s Since it is (or young chiWfen, mofe imaginative use of the
screen would be nboe
Better Spelling
£12.95 • School Software Ltd • 010 353 61 27994
This is a spelling course aimed at the 3 to adult age group. It
consists of a series of well organised, short iessans each
dealiryg with one topic, like plurals or which version of
there/lheir/lhey're to use m a sentence. The use of the PCW
screen is rather untmaginative. arxi doesn't hold your attenthn.
PLUSES < MINUSES
G Well thought out lessons to emphasise particular points
G Teaches words in a sentence context as well as in isolalion
[ ] Lessons can be picked in any order from a menu
n Seems to be proof against mischievous key pressing
» BortrtQ use of the screen doesn't grab interest
m No insimctions corrve as to how lo use the program.
Chemistry • Biology
£12.95 • School Software • 010 353 61 27994
TTrese two are faidy trat^tionaf question-and-answer tests. You
are faced with a choice of 10 topics, and then asked fO or so
questions each, where you have fo fill in the blarik tn a
statement. There are preamble notes beforehartd, arxi tf you get
ft wrong you are given a due. Aimed at 12-1$ year okis.
PLUSES • MINUSES
D Questions woukj challenge a GCSE pupil well
G Preanrble notes introduce topics
HE The fill-in-ihe blank questionir^ styte has liitke Hexibility for
different answers
s No option to add questions for a specialised syllabus
^ Some careless errors, like incorrect tacts and hard to
decipher chemicaE fonrtulae
Micro Matlis
£24,95 • LCL • 0491 579345
ir i l l l i >II H. i m j^W^W^WW^WWWt
Supposedly covering d to adult ages, this seems an 0-level type
program. coverJr}g topics from caculus to tat>Ses. A good
srT}plementation on 1i^ PCW with proper use of the screen.
Questions are picked ai random from a pool, so may repeat tjut
never run out f^eplies lo gues^ns are typed in ma^emasical
notation, like X''2+3
PLUSES ' MINUSES
G Vou can pause to use BASIC as a calculator whiter you think
D 'Unlimited' question set
D Comes with a 'tree' book ol AE8 Olevet questions
D Good hints and explanations when you get an answer wrong
« Questions tn a topic repeat occastonalty
^ Some IriliSp like the dock and beeper, are annoyirtg
» No flexibility to add questions lor a particular syllabus
Amstat 1,2,3 and 4
£30-isti ■ Coleman • Ashby-de-la-Zouch LE6 5DA
A sutte of four slatistfcal rouUnes including a business analysis
program, forecasting arrd resource management fndivkiual
prices range tram £27.95 to £39.95. ail four cost £99 95
Sophisticated but perhaps awkward for t>eginners.
PLUSES -MINUSES
G Good range of statistical functions
G Good manual
G Can produce fair quality graphical results
e Some editing procedures very lo^-wirK^
^ Needs some expertise to use properly
» Weak on checking that input data is reasonabler
Oxstat
E113.85.MedstatLld-0602 411120
This is a ^>ecialised statistical analysis package for the PCW.
Functions from calculations of means lo multiple tirmar
regression are covered, arxi il can do some rudimentary
graphics far results. You can read data from spreadsheets or
external devices.
PLUSES ' MINUS€S
G Comprehensive range of statistical functions implemented
G Good screen editing (aciiities (or entry ol data
o Ttte speed seems acceptabie. even though it is wntten in
BASIC
G Even mmplex analyses are easily entered by simple menus
s! Weak on gra^^ical presentation of results
Yes Chancellor!
£14.95 -Topologika- 0733 244682
Wait^ Don't ship over Yes Ci^anceltor' tiecause it calls itself an
'economic simulation' program. Instructive and fun to use. you
type in your annual budgets {tax rates, putntic spending etc.} and
see your popularity plunge arvt the economy crash. Great tor
economics classes, afso an amusing game in itself
PLUSES ' MINUSES
r' Sample bm effective model of the economy
l; Comes with booklet explaining economic principles
O Great for teaching economic and political pragmatisml
« Can get boring as a game
» You can't adjust Ihe model of the economy, so it can be loo
simple
8000 PLUS 77
THE GOOD SOFTWARE FILE
PROGRAMMING • COMMUNICATIONS
PROGRAMMING
HiSoft C
£39.95 ■ HiSott • 0S2S 718181
A very good C comptier. fast, produces good compscf code.
PLUSES ' Mir<USES
O Comphles program into ordinaFy CPM GOM lile
D Produces compact code
D Fast and inexpensive
m Mo floating poini anttirmetic
Arnor C
£49.95- Arnor. 0733 239011
Good compiler with floating pom! arithmsttc. but not as fS5f or
as cheap as HiSott C
PLUSES < MINUSES
L! Excellent integrated text edilor
P Flcatir>g point ariThmeHc
■ Curnbdrsome Eo produce .COM files, n&e<£3 special run tfme
support pfogram
Q HiSott C is faster and cheaper
MIXC
£29.95 • Advantage • 0844 52075
American C compiler. You can buy a full screen edllar mlh it
for £19.95 BJtfra. Also machine axie assembler i examples tor
£8 95 each,
PLUSES • MINUSES
D Features a C tutorial
D Comprehensive impjerrentation and massive manual
* Nol (or Ihe newcomer Itj programming
Pascal
£39,95. Hisoft. 0525 718181
fl SJanoafQ tun rascat cofnptt&r
PLUSES ^MINUSES
I ;. Won I ntog rallied texi editor - when you hit a compilalion error
/ou are returned 10 the correct point to edit it
D Short compHation time, ecorKjmical on memory
s Manual makes no attempt to teach you Pascal
Forth
£19.95-Hisoft.0525 718181
Forth is an unususi tanguage. somewhere tyetween assembler
arwt C. This is ana ot the tew comf^tiers avaitable for Itie PCW
PLUSES -MINUSES
n Comes wim a Forth ediioi
D Quid/, and eflicieni implemematlon
> Manual doesn't taac^ you Fonti
lUfodufa 2
E4S.00 ■ FTL Grey Matter • 0364 53499
A compifer Modola-^ is the si/ccessof to PascaK good for
large programs requiring separata compilsHor},
PLUSES * MINUSES
a Full imptemeniation with extensions,
n Includes libraries of prsdefirred modules
D WonJStar-type streen editor included
m Compilation process is longwinded and not for beginners
ZBASIC
£75.00 • Zedcor Grey Matter • 0364 53499
Compiler
PLUSES ■ MINUSES
D 400 Paga manual, not badly wnnen
G Conipatme witti Microsoft BASIC, henoe simple Mallard
prograirs (not Jelsam)
D Extensions like oMencted IFs, REPEAT .. UNTIL
at No difect access to GP'M Iram ZBASIC
» Sfiems to reject some slatements as "too compter'.
The VICAR
£29.95. iansyst- 01 -607 5844
A ptvgrammfng loot tor serious programm&rs- tf yOu ftave a
sev&rai-huridf&d (ine prograrn tjakf in several files on a disc,
you can lose track of wt^ich vsriat>ies are used where. The
VICAR produces a concordance listirjg and other diagnostics,
to help yosj find bugs and maintain the program.
PLUSES • MINUSES
- Easy to use but siill flexible through use ol options
Amsirad versions all at a special low price
; Good manual
* Only o1 value on targe programs
143 Limited value to most PCW users (except BASIC buffs)
m^mmm
Goodvatii»
it's BASIC {Vols 1 and 2)
£7.95 each • Nabitchi . 051-708 8775 0123
uames witn a mor& senous intent, these discs provide 20
simple garr^es and applications each, and allow programmers
to look at the BASIC to see how it's dorm and to adapt it tor
their cwn programs. You can play music on your CP/M and
create your own Space invader figures.
PLUSES - MINUSES
[ J Twer>ty programs at rock bottom price.
n Invaluable tips for programmers.
D Costs IfttFe more than a Uank disc-
Ub No tutorial guidance.
COMMUNICATIONS
Communications is one ot tfie glittering areas of
computing, gurus would tiave you believe. It can
provide a fascinating tiobby for 'hacl^ers', but
more importantly it is a valuable business tool.
Electronic mail' is just wtiat it says: you use
your PCW to send messages, whicti can be
documents tfiou sands ot words long, to others
on the electronic mail system. The best known
system of this kind is Telecom Gold, whicti also
allows you to send telexes. Another major
system is Prestel, which is more of an
information provider - you can read share
prices, weather information and other news
direct from your phone line.
For any professional service, you pay a
registration tee, plus a connection charge -
typically around lOp per minute you use the
system. Of course, your phone bills are extra.
For hobbyists there are also ■Bulletin boards',
which are effectively a Itind of private electronic
mail system run by a system operator (a 'sysop'
to those in the know).
78 8000 PLUS
To use any service, you will need to buy a
modem and an interface. A modem allows you to
send computer signals down a phone line, and
the interface gets the signals from your PCW to
your modem. The pair will set you back £200 or
more. Once done, you need some software to
allow you to send and receive data, and it is this
software reviewed below.
Electronic mail services just send strings of
characters to and fro, whereas Prestel is a
Viewdata' system, meaning it sends pictures
and graphics too. Software needs to do more to
receive Viewdata graphics, so if you want to use
Prestel make sure your software is up to it.
PuMh aotmtln
8256UKM7,COM
Public domain (ie. free!)
P.O. software documentation is often poor bat this progrsm has
an above average document tile. UKM7 was written to support
ASCII file transfers using error correction ^nd as a dumb
terminal either tor use over the phone or between two Amsiraids.
Between two PCWs file transfer is possible at a staggering
31.250 baud which is even faster than PIP? Easy to use for
beglnrjers and better than K£RMiT. UKM7 provides a cheap and
excellent way to communications after you've got ted up with ttte
PCWs MAILS3S. 325SUKM7 is available from the Public
Domain Special Interest Group, or rnosl bulletin boards
supporting the PCW machines.
PLUSES * MINUSES
:.; Cheap! (ihe price oi a ptiono call)
r Easy to usei and iialpful menus
:.: Etoih CRC and Xmodem protocols supported
zi' Single file and Batch Mode transfers
D "Quiet" mode for si^hily faster Translets (on-line transfer
progress report disabled)
e Only ASCH, no Viewdata
fl You need to find a PD soHware source (eg. use a mo<^m and
MAIL23? softvvare)
CHITCHAT E-MAIL/VIEW/DATA,' COMBO
Sagesoft • £69.99 £69.99 £99.99 • 091 284 7077
Two communications programs lor the SOOO series machines
that have bean around lor a good lime now. Most ol the teatures
you wili need are here: message text editor, preprogramming
unatterjded tasHsi it you use a suitable "intalligent" modem),
directory of stored numbers, copy to printer, and a very useful
conriect time dock so you can watch yourptione bill dimb! E-
mail i$ used for sim^e texlphorm links like Telecom Gold,
whereas you'll need Viewdata if you want K) use Prestel The
Comtx> pack contains both E-mail and Viewdata.
PLUSES - MINUSES
O Good, Clear documentation
p Easy for first timers lo use
□ Bu^t m text editof lor pfe-sending message preparaiFon
: Pre-definal^le tasks execulatjfe at any preset time if
unattended.
s No eror corrected file transfer (i.e. Xmodem or CRC)
Dialup
£89.99 . RMS Communications • 021-643 7688
utters tx}th E-mail antj Vtewaala opef3ticns. Very easy to ijse,
ami offers an XMODEM transfer protocol uolilte Sage ChiiChai.
If you are trying a motlem loo there are some ajt-price bundleil
deals to be had, eg. the Miracle Technology WS4000 modem.
PLUSES • MINUSES
D Simple to use
□ Comprehensiue (He transPer commands, including XMODEI^
and the increasingly popular KERMIT
Q Ftirns from ine M drive
EE Manual is not PCW specilic, and Itio references to 5.25" discs
are todious
Pow6rtul& versatiie
COMM+
£86.25 • NewStar . 0277 220573
This single package combines both ASCII and lull Viewdata
btock graphics and Teiesottwara downk^ading. A very powerful
cohimand language a/tows you to look tor particutar messages
coming in and take actions, even white doing other things. Its
use is only limited by your programmtng ability.
PLUSES " MINUSES
D Very comprehensive and well tndeKed ring bound manual
□ High quality Viewdata graphics
n WeH presented on-line halp menus for use by beginners
I Autod»aNer program works witli most manual modems
I ; Telesoftware ijowtiioading facility, with CRC/Xmodem
ciTieCktng
G Very powerful command language, do&sn'l need much
programming skill to learn
&f Not recomrnended for absolute beginners to corrKnunications
NEXT MONTH
The guide continues next month with the
categories of SPREADSHEETS. GRAPHICS
and GAINES The month after that will cover
WORDPROCESSORS. ACCOUNTS
PAYROLL. UTILITY and DTP software, and
Ihe month after that it's back to this month's
topics.
Our intention is to keep putilishing the three
parts of the guide in rotation, updating it each
month to include all new products II you
would like lo see other sections of the guide,
back issues ol 8000 Plus are available at
CI 75 each
l^eanwhile. if you are aware ot any
significant omissions or errors in the File as
published, please let us know. We intend to
maintain it as THE authontative guide to PCW
software.
COLOURED RIBBONS
Coloured compatible ribbons
available for most printers
including
PCW8256
details from
Pearldeck Trading Ltd
FREE POST
Billingford Diss
Norfolk IP2I 4BR
Create on 2\d tke this ujth
MeujsdesK International and
COMPLIEMIENir.
\ (BHPtEllEHT 19 »aw»r* (kssiflflfO Tor uh gith flHtric Stutfio'i NfuSOetK iNteflNfttlOrtit Owfctop Poti1iaMt>j arc
ART GrgphbnjMcksgpsK Thijwiwrt fs using ii*ttrisUro«triffiJiK*iifiiich 19 ijtwra for onlg^ j*inr-n
' 'jyt do uPv^t fgr trw •(««» Lffn-M« .m„*_iu^u
L ^iC ciKiEiins lose r>» -orts dnclixFing RrC D«o dnd Art Houw^^. and two wt* i0H9»<h». Tgxtur? fonts (uh-E^
Kt hk* tgp&'iri fills fft- l^-flsr p4ti«n»> vid BorMrg (kits of Mi&-arC tiwt «»itiiti to tiM yofftHion*':
Mi'tlfrs for i;3ur pspfg or adwrtsJ,
Tntir* Poflts 9Pt \tr^ 90k32 pikdl pottfrfta thflt e*n bt u«<t to fill *"f» mt^ t«j<turM othfr than trw 55
Mjlalff ifl tr» OTP pachWH Ttwf srt tnrw on tr» dlK.SurrKSS (Bncii, Stow^ TIIOkUooO, «c.\ Cflrtaprflpnu
i^kjnn, ttgrsh, UwJo. floats stc.> »nd Patt«rna ^Ti9h«e9lc Drops^ Cubic, UfMVj etc.) uibh raos for uou lo jicU
iy( if (jHirKL
TUf [tor^srs coroist of Corjw5-(tert l ricPC^jHaniontsh, ycrtitsTa, indiwduflTEtofnentsanci, for tfwftrtttecD
mi] Qrt Koijijrsuhitfl, ii^ri'DUfl Enita ilanainlw'izDrtfll and uert^i^al). By «9Hl}Eirig tl^ SBCtiCini of »rii(t-drt gll\i Cdn
r^iidl^ Qiw your artuarK or paig^'m 'Htgt'AtiDwthsr'Cst.
■ ^ disc aha CDoCflins A ucosi^ipt fr« of hiriti Aid tip9. c^^rw ^fsu^
iLch U9ir of Uw fiKktgfl^ « ue11 m clev tnotmctians hi ^ ta u» tAO
T vnturt Font« and BordvrSi
trw dliK <irKludir>D RycordiMf Detiuv^pQst^ in UK>> ia obt^lMbto fnrti
Dragorf^ly
Designs
Se. Thff ShryelftPpds, HoTiforfl,
Hor«!di.r*Drro>f.nfl1i33eL
INFORMATION EDUCATION
WITH COMPUTER POWER
"Viewbooks form the ideal course
companion for ar^y student' '
VburAmstfsdPCMfOct J987
' ToiheleachetaTdpjpJsttcouWoftef
oneof ihe greatest revolutKonssince the
photocopier".
The Teacher, 22ndJijne 1987
■ Think of it as a large database already
packed lull ot irtformatior .. you can
print out any number of pages or
iiansferafilewiihchosenpagestoihp
M-dtivesothatyoucanworkontheiext
in a word -processor - in other words
instant essays".
3000 Plus. SepKmber )SS7
A SELECTtON OF VIEWBOOKS AVAILABLE FOR
nrfif -A' AND DEGREE LEVEL STUDY_
QENERAt STUDIES
Sciffnc^ in Society
Cinema m View
GEOGRAPHY
Dissppesring Forests
Atmospheric f^iHution
Oa^Albury Keynes: An Introduction
Jos Schwarti 7"^ Hidden Economy
Vincent Porter t^gjx; An Introduction
Perer Howells
Philip Maitera
John Ure
Nigel Dudley
Ste^« Elsworth
Mens Work. Women's Wcrii. Tony Chapman
Hesfrh. MedKine andSoctm Li sley Doval
Pvnishing Poverty: A Study
ot the New Poor Lsw pruBChemberlavne
The Factory Acts: . f c- . i„
Uisseifaire Interrupted Usl»y Fo* le'
IfKfustrrai Relations 1780 1930:
AOacumentary History Keith Burjess
f.tr:r^f,TflW OF^- " r.%T.r...K^. 10782, 281643
¥
iewbook
To order send Chequa/P.O. to:
information Education Ltd
Freepost, STOke-on Trent STI 4BR
MONEY FROM YOUR AMSTRAD
Got z PCW! Or just thiniting of buying one? Either vyay you can't go
wrong, tfie PCW is the perfect snnali business computer. Did you realize.
though, just how many ways there are of making money with one? I tjon't
mean running your own business, but carrying out simple tasks for other
people. Tasks which are well paid.
Experienced user or beginner, we can show you haw to make real mortey,
full or part time, providing straightforward computer services. No
programming, no hard selling, no hassling, and you operate at home.
Companies spend nnore every year on computer sevices. Don't miss your
oportunity in this exciting and growing field!
Write orphans for free details of this complete business plan
specifically for the Amstrtid PCW owrjer.
POINT ONE PUBLISHING
BOX 30, ST BEES, CUMBRIA CA27 OBN
Tel: 0946 822 242
CARD FILE IN A MUDDLE?
Let CHIBASE help sort It out!
Hardsoft V international
I a The Square, Sawbridgeworth, Herts
0279 726488/406
LEASE AN AMSTRAD PC 1 640
DOMD + EPSON PRINTER + WORDPROCESSOR + SPREADSHEET ... FOR
UNDER £7.00 PER WEEK
We offer all the Amstrad machines, various printers and software for sale,
lease purchase or lease-rental. Short term hire available.
PCW81S6-£289+VAT
PCW 85 1 2 - £389 + VAT
PCW 95 (2 -£484+ VAT
ALL WITH FREE MAINTENANCE CONTRACT WORTH £7S
Software also available at up to 'A normal prices
* NATIONWIDE NEXT DAY DEUVERY * CONSUMABLES * FREE TAX &
FINANCIAL GUIDANCE * CONTINUOUS STATIONERY *
* lA hr MAINTENANCE *
CHIBASE i^lipcCi,^IEif dL'iigri<rd,lud wiiutn forihr
Putcmg your notes or abscraccs on Chibase is really easy, and Chibse helps ^ou to
find [lust the ones you need by means of keywords.
Thif IS l>ow Chlluse could work for you:
# You can use Chibase eo replace an irKlexed cardfile or notebook. A Chibue
record corresponds to a card in the card In the cardfile or a page in the notebook
# Chiba$e includes i. simple text editor which enabk$ you to enter and amend your
record text on the screen. As you type in o^- amend your record text, you can
nofnmate one or more words as ke]i'v/ords- A single key command nomjnats the
word at the cursor as a keyword, and the word becomes highlighted,
9 A singk key command causes the edited text eo be stored as a record on the
datable- The keywords will be stored in an index. The software uses the index to
find records.
V You can selectively retrieve records by means of an enquiry which is )ust a list ot
keywords. Those records which ifHrlude the listed keywords will be retrieved,
You can also retrieve only those records whose keywords include sonw mtnifnum
number of the keywords in the listr
Some features of Chiibase
# Fast and easy to use : No complicated syntax lo learn.
9 Free format tesct up to 23 lines of 80 characters per record.
# Kejovords up to 1 5 characters. Up to SO keywords per record.
# An lnd«x of keywords is automatically maintained by the software. You can raw
or print the index.
The index can distinguish between upper and lower case characters tf required.
# Form facility, if required, hefps you to position text within the records. Move
between parts of the fomn by pressirtg the TAB key.
# Export/Import facility enables you to move English text to or from your word
processor,
# Am end/Delete fac il ities.
# Sort^jlity. (Needs SI 2K RAM).
# High cjipadty achieved by automatic text compresion and tn^ v^ni^k length
records.
% Compreitihensive Indexed Manual with tutorial introduction.
SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £39,95 fnc(d<rtei Dec. 31)
CWMBRAN COMPUTER CENTRE
Jtpt. EP). 3-4 Ve«il..or Roiid, Old CwfnbrLM>, Oven
Phons; (0*33 3) 60n» or 1 -3»? 9758 ( M houn)
Open: Mon-fri 9,00 -7.00. Sun 10.00- 1.00
ACCESS VISA
HOTLINE
■s 0458 74011
!■■■■■!
ORDER FORM No 15
Use this form to order either a subscription
or special offers by tidfmg the items you
require. All speclai offer goods are sent by
1st class post, normally within five days of
receipt of order. But please allow 28 days
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□ SUBSCRIFnON £17.95
{Inc (re« gill pact;. )
II you are an existing subscriber wishing to
extend your sutyscription, please tick here: U
UQOOO PLUS GIFT PACK £8.95
(Existing subscriljers only)
□ THINGI [left ol screen) £5.95
U THINGI (right of screen) £5.95
... Pkt(s) DISK LABELS £1 .00 ea
(Errter number required)
UDUST COVERS 8256/8512 £10.95
□ DUST COVERS 9512 £1 1 .95
Q BINDER £4.95
□ 3 HIGHUGHTER PENS £1.50
QSCRABBLE £1295
Q BASIC MANUAL {+ pens) £9.95
TOP SJX GAMES
ClTHEPAWN £19.95
□ HEADOVER HEELS £9.95
□ HITCHHIKERSE19.95
□ STATIONFALL £19,95
□ LEADERBOARD £19.95
□ STARGLIDER £19.95
BACK ISSUES
□ issues £1.50
U Issue 8 £1 .50
□ issue 10 £1.75
□ fssue12£1.75
□ issue 14 El .75
□ issue7£1.50
Q Issue 9 £1 .75
ul Issue 1 1 £1 75
□ issue 13 £1.75
PAYMENT DETAIU
Value of total order
(min order £S 00)
COMPUTER
SCRABBLE
Only £12.95 -save £7!!
■ Anyone wfio enjoys playing with words will
find i1 hard to resist this superb version of the
classic word -game.
■ Scrabble on the PCW, supplied by Leisure
Genius, presents you witfi a unique challenge: Can
you beat your word processor at word processing?
■ Be warned. The program, backed up by a huge built-
in dictionary, plays a very mean game. It knows all the
rules and will use every trick in the book to build up mind-
boggling scores.
■ The full Scrabble board is displayed on the screen with all
the squares in their usual places. More than one player can take
on the computer simultaneously, and you can set the program's
level from super-fast to super-smart. There are other options,
including the facility to see the computer trying out various words.
■ The program also checks your words against its dictionary and will query any it doesn't
recognise - but yes, you can overrule it. Much friendlier than a human opponent in that regard.
■ It's just as well, because you'll need all the help you can get if you're to beat the machine.
■ A fantastic program at an amazing bargain price
Payment is by (please circle)
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ri^ake payable to FUTURE PUBLISHING LTD.
Your credit card numlwr Is
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8000 PLUS
BACK ISSUES
We have limited quantities of the back issues listed below.
The prices include a nominal 25p postage. All issues
contain excellent TipOff sections and a selection of BASIC
listings, plus the other regulars. Don't miss the chance to
expand your collection.
issues 1-4. SOLD OUT!
issue 5. £1 ,50 Printer sun/ey. Reviews of Pretext, Trivial Pursuit. Strike
Force Hamer. Business letters layout. SETSIO and DEVICE
commands explained.
Issue 6 SOLDOUTI
Issue 7 £1 .50 Spreadsheets special. LocoScript troubleshooting.
Reviews of Cavalier accounts, Personal Tax Pianner, Stockmarttet
packages, Adrian Mole.
issue 8 £1 .50 LocoScript 2 in depth review. Comms packages
compared. AMX Desktop reviewed, plus Starglider, Southern Belle,
Steve Davis Snooker, File Manager.
Issue 9 £175 Free packet of disc labels. Fleet St Editor Plus.
Expanding your memory. Using LocoMail. CPM's SID utility. Reviev^
of Head Over Heels, home finance programs, Accounts made easy.
Issue 10 £1.75 Graphics packages compared, £10 database.
More on LocoJutail. LocoScript templates. Hotshot reviewed.
Teach yourself Logo.
Issue 11 £1.75 How to recover lost disc data. Installing a
second drive. The SUBMJT command. Reviews of
Desktop Publisher, Red Boxes, Leaderboard.
Issue 12 £1.75 Databases compared. Using
^Jetsam. Getting into LocoScript 2. Index to first 12
issues. Reviews of Amor's C, Bridge programs.
Issue 13 £1.75 Linking to portables. PIP
revealed. Genealogy software. Pretext and
Hitch-hiker's tips. Anagram accounts.
Datastore. Fleet Street Editor fonts.
= ^ Issue 14 El .75 Full review of the
PCW 9512. Connecting to a
synthesizer. LocoScript 2
wallchart. Reviews of
Poolswinner, low-cost
business software,
battery backups.
Send this form plus payment to
SPECIAL OFFERS • 8000 PLUS
SOMERTON • SOMERSET ■ TA11 7PY
(valid until Dec 3 1 si, 1987)
I
OFFICIAL
BASIC MANUAL
Only £9.95 -with
FREE pack of highlighter pens!
Your PCW system disc includes Mallard BASIC, the excellent
version of the programming language BASIC written by
Locomotive Software. The only trouble is there's no proper
documentation for it with the machine (unless you were a very
early purchaser of the 8256),
But now you can develop your programming ability with the aid
ol the latest version of the official Locomotive manual, an
excellent, well-presented book running to over 400 pages.
It covers all commands available in Mallard BASIC in full detail,
backed up with numerous examples and sample listings. Any
differences relevant to the different PCW mo<Jels are pointed out
in the text. The new version also includes a much expanded
lutorial section intended to teach BASIC programming from
scratch. There is also full coverage given to the GSX graphics
commands and the Jetsam tile storage system.
If you want to use
your PCW for more
than just word-
processing, this book
can open the door.
Oh, and because
there will be numerous
bits you'll want to return
to quickly, we're
throwing in a free set of
8000 Plus highlighter
p«ns so that you can
mark key passages! An
excellent buy.
CHRISTMAS
GAMES SPECIAL
Save £5 on each of the year's Top Six PCW
entertainment programs!
■ HEAD OVER HEELS
The incredibly-animated program from
Ocean in which you control TWO
separate characters, using their different
abilities to solve some mind-bending
puzzles. Huge playing area and
probably the best graphics on the PCW.
Plus totally absorbing gameplay.
Only £9.95! (RRP £14.95)
■ LEADERBOARD
This is the famous golfing simulation
which brings the challenge of a round
of championship golf onto your
computer. Numerous variables have
to be taken into account as you plan
each shot. Excellent graphics add to
the atmosphere.
Only £14.951 (RRP £19.99)
HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
The hilarious adventure from Infocom
based on the Douglas Adams book.
Combines ingenious puzzles with the
wackiest humour of any computer
game. Solve it inside two months and
you're a genius.
Only £19.95! (RRP £24,95)
■ THE PAWN
Rainbird's graphic adventure
game set in a mysterious kingdom
of ice towers, golden palaces and
dangerous forests. The game
combines gorgeous pictures with
effective text descriptions and
strong character interaction.
Only £19.95! {RRP £24,95)
1 STAT10NFALL
Another outstanding Infocom game from
Steve Meretzky, co-author of Hitch-
hiker's. You have to rescue a space
station from impending doom. Excellent
atmosphere, great humour. The superb
packaging includes detailed game maps.
Only £19.95! (RRPE24.95)
■ STARGLIDER
Don't like adverttures? How about a
shoot-'em-up? The famous Starglider
from Rainbird features fast 3D
graphics, plenty of excitement and a
strong strategy element. The price
includes a mini-novel to set the scene!
Only £19.95! (RRP £24.95)
HOW TO ORDER
Just fill in the order torm on the left of this page. Or use our
Access Visa hotline on 0458 7401 1 .
MAGAZINE BINDERS
Store up to 12 issues for just £4.95
8000 Plus, we humbly suggest, is a magazine worth collecting. Our
styrdy, custom-built binders provide the best way pt keeping your copies
tidy, in good condrtion and instantly available. Each one is designed to
hold 12 copies ofSOOO Plus and preserve them tor posterity - and easy
future reference.
Individual magazines are held in place by one of 12 wires. And the
binders look good too. They're coloured a rich green with the magazine
logo printed in blocked Newvap Gold on the spine and front. Buy one
and watch your 8000 Plus collection grow into a comrehensive libraiy ol
PCW info.
8000 PLUS
LABELS
Packet of 20 for £1 , (when ordered with
another product)
Ore of the most annoying things about 3" discs is that they arent
normally supplied v^ith spare labels. That's why we designed our own
(and gave away over 300,000 with the June issue of SOOO plus).
Pf you want some spares, we have them in packets of 20, 4 different
colours, 5 of each colour. They're £1 a packet, provided you order
something else at ttie same time. [You could simply buy an extra
packet I)
A neat way of keeping ^^iffij^ your discs organised.
8000 PLUS DUST
COVERS
3-piece set for 8256/8512 only £10.95
3-piece set for 9512 only £1 1.95
Let's face it, computers don't like dust. Over a period of time it can
make them very ill indeed; keyboards stk^k, disk drives become fess
reliable, printer mechanisms clog up.
A set of dust covers for the three parts of your system provides
a neat solution. And there's the added bonus of smartening up
the hardware's appearance when It's not in use.
The specially -com missioned 8000 Plus covers are made
from high-quality, anti-static nylon fabric. The sets for the
8000 series machines are coloured a soft grey with smart
red piping for the monitor ^id printer covers. For the
9512, the covers are ivory piped with brown. Both sets
include the 8000 Plus logo printed on the keyboard
cover.
It all adds up to a good argument for a cover up.
THE THINGI
Only £5.95 - save £2!
Whafs white, dangles paper next to your computer screen,
and costs two pounds less than in the shops? Yes, a
Thingi bought through 8000 Plus.
This remarkable computer accessory ~ an idea
so simple it's ingenious - could dramatically
ease your hours at the keyboard. It's
basically a cleverly-shaped piece of
plastic that attaches via Velcro to the
top of your micro. But with a Thingi
on your PCW you can have
documents, letters or program
listings clipped right next
to the screen in perfect
reading position. Any task
involving copying off paper is
thereby made much easier
and faster. In fact, the coloured
clip supplied is sturdy enough to
support an issue of 8000 Plus
open, say, at the Listings section.
The Thingi comes in two versions one for positioning to the left of the
screen, the other to the right - the Vetcro attachment allows easy
readjustment or temporary removal,
A sensible, cost-effective add-on for your PCW.
HOW TO ORDER
Just turn back one page and
lill in the order lorm. Or use
our Access Visa holMne on
0458 74011,
I
I
I
HIGHLIGHTER
PENS
Three for £1.50
Anyone who uses computers a lot, can make
use of highlighter pens. For marking the
important lines in a document or printout or
program listing. For ensuring a key sentence in
a manuai isn't forgotten. Or just for trlghlighttng
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Paying £1 7.95 for a year's subscription won't save you much on
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POSTSCRIPT
POSTSCRIPT
Droves of diverse dispatches dissected and displayed by a
clogged Ed.
Ripptng yarn
I am very concerned about the
({uality of ribbons now supplied by
Amstrad for ttie PCW 8526/851 2
printer.
Over the past few weel^s I tiave
tiad to purchase a replacement,
having found ttiat re-inking of the
original ribbon by a v^^eil known
supplier failed to give me a good
job in that all I got was over-inked
ribbons which smudged the paper
and blurred the print.
The new ribbon appeared to be
a very thin plastic backed strip. It
began to jam in the case and
suddenly a double or triple loop of
ribbon would appear and the whole
lot would drop into the printer, so
tt)at I had to stop and rewind it into
the case before I could
recommence printing.
I returned the ribbon as faulty to
DiKons, my local supplier, who
replaced it with another one. The
same happened to this ribbon and
after a week I again returned it for
replacement.
The same happened with the
third ribbon. Later in the week while
again printing a long file (I am
printing a book of 250 pages, in
chapters of approximately six to
eight pages) I left the printer to print
by itself. On my return I found that
this tirre there was nothing printed
because the ribbon had broken in
half apparently after jamming just at
ttiejoin.
I am pleased to say that again
Oixons replaced the faulty ribbon,
but suggested that I also complain
to Amstrad, who supplied the
ribbons, to see if this was a general
complaint, and ask what could be
done about it. This I have done and
am now awaiting a reply. Might I
add that I had no problems with the
old type ribbons supplied and which
gave exceptionally good service.
Edward Bedingfeld
Maidenhead, Berks
%Atew months ago Amstrad introduced a
The 9512 revolution is starting to pick up now, although tiie
majority of Ihe 8000 Plus postbag is still merrily dot-
matrixed, Thiis months topics range from black
marketeering to alcohol abuse - wlio says tliat computer
magazines don't debate the w/ider issues of modern
society?
If you feel moved to put finger to keyboard, send your
thoughts on life to PostScript. 8000 Plus, 4 Queen Street,
BathBAI 1BJ.
'cartKin film'ribbort as an atiemative to (he
traditional inked fabric variety. You
obviousty have one of these ca(t)on film
ones, which in theory gives crisper print.
Presumably Ihe carbon film ones have
tieen a success, since Amstrad have now
stopped supplying the fabric type
altogether, which is why Dixons no longer
stock them.
It you dont like the carbon film type, all
is not lost since there are third parly (ie.
non-Amstrad branded) fabric riljbons
available for the PCW. Pelikan are one of
the biggest European ribbon
manufacturers, and they make a suitable
one. Ribbons lor the PCW carry the
standard international group number
2741 FN. Any good stationer will be able to
get Pelikan ribbons lor you.
Alictear
73's in amateur radio parlance
means 'Good wishes', and 'es gud
dx' means means Hope you have
many long distance radio
contacts'. I know because I too am
an amateur radio fan, class *A' like
your other correspondent, M.J.
Pratt.
Charles Winston
Congteton, Cheshire
m Well then. 73's 2UB
Double trouble
"Trouble at t'shops" there may be
(Keywords. Novemtier). but 1 think
you've got Trouble in tpost.
As a long-standing subscriber I
am continually aggrieved to find the
issue on sale in shops several days
before mine an'ives in the post. The
problem is that BOOO Plus is so
good that I usually have to buy a
copy when I see it so end up
spending twice as much as I need
to!
Please can you get the copies
in the post sooner?
Alec Veer
Glasgow
• Because we have so many subscribers
(over $,000} we don't actually post the
magazines ourselves but contract it mil
Briefly, the timings are these: the
subscribers' copies are delivered to the
mailing company (in Bristol) on a Thursday.
These are posted out the next day. The
issue does not go on sale unlit the foilowing
Thursday, which allows six days for the
Post Office to do its stuff. In some areas
the issue may appear in shops a day or two
early, but that is a kicat distribution matter.
We can't post copies out lirst class
because the Post Office won't take lirst
class bulk mailings - each month's 8000
Plus batch weighs almost Vh tonnes!
Statistically, out of S.OOO copies posted
some are bound to get delayed each
month. II your copy is regularly late then it
is probably your local sorting office at fault
ICpmein,Z88
On the strength of your review of
the Sinclair (oops) Cambridge Z88 I
rushed to my local Dixons and
bought their one and only model
together with a comms lead and
1 28K RAM. I use it principally for
library work and writing away from
my PCW and find that so far it lives
up to my expectations and your
review and I forecast a good future
for this machine.
I have transferred a large
number of files from the Z88 to the
PCW without any loss of data.
There is however one problem that
I am experiencing which is at the
PCW end of the operation. Despite
the fact that there is over 100K of
space on the disc I frequently get a
disc error message "NO DATA
BLOCK" and have to transfer files
to LocoScript to enable the CP/M
disc to accept more transferred
files. This error message occurs
whether the file is 1 k or 8k; there
seems to be no reason for it and I
am finding it somewhat frustrating
having to change disc several times
to transfer relatively little
information. What I am I doing
wrong?
This letter was written on the
Z88 and transferred successfully!!
A Adams
Mannlngtree, Essex
• /( sounds as though you could be trying
to store your transferred files on a disc that
you have also used lor LocoScript
documents. When you say there is '100k
free', presumably you mean that LocoScript
tells you there is tOOk free. It is lying to
you! Because of the way LocoScript stores
its Limbo files, CP/M may think that the disc
is lull (this month's CP/M article on pages
25/26 explains why). The simplest solution
Is to format a new disc specialty for use
with CP/M and tile transfers, and don't try
to mix LocoScript and CP/M tiles on the
same disc.
' I TMifJK I PpfcF&pp.e-p
two's company
I gazed longingly at the PCW 9512
in Dixons the other day. "Can I?" I
said to my wife, mentally deciding
there and then I would, anyway.
8000 PLUS 85
POSTSCRIPT
Wheel of fortune
Could I be the first PCW 951 2
owner out of your postbag?
Having patiently waited
several months tor the launch of
ttie PCW 951 2. to my <Jeligh) I
was able to make my purchase
on 23/9/87 thanks to Dixons in
Bridgwater.
Very impressed I was too,
although hours after setting up
the machine I decided that the
manual supplied was completely
useless in its book form and
promptly tore out ail the pages
{one by one!) and divided it
between three ring binders. The
enct result is definitely easier to
work with.
That over and done with I
wasted the next day trying to
operate the phnter. In sheer
desperation I referred to the
manual (I could have saved
myselt a great deal oi
embarrassment if I had read it
first!) to discover that I hadn't set
it up to use continuous paper.
Thai rectified, it wasn't too long
Ijefore everything fed in its place.
I am well pleased with my
purchase and get a real buzz
when the printer is in operation,
the print quality is marvellous
and at the moment I can do
nothing but praise the mactiine.
Who knows as a regular
reader of 8000 Pius this could be
the first of many tetters of
correspondence to yourselves.
Liz Davidge
Bridgwater
• You weren't Ihe first 9512 owner out
oi the postbag. but since you were (he
first to adhere to the letter ot the
challer)ge and provide a photo, you wif\
the extravagant tuwry of some spare
daisywheels. Oh, but it you do write
again, please don't use the Scnpt 12
wheel we sent - it's a horrible typefacel
'You've got one already, you
don't need another one " she said,
and dragged me off to Tesco's
She's right, of course, but I
wanf one. And when I get it, can I:
1) In any way use the printer of
my existing (upgraded, 2 drives,
etc.) 8256 in addition to the nice
Oaisywheel supplied, or do I have
to buy a separate dot-matrix for
graptiics?
2} Take the "B" drive out of my
current machine, and install it in the
9512 - I know that the colour is
black, and aesthietically it'll look
silly, but will it work?
if I hide the 8256 and put the
new one in its place, do you think
my wife*!! notice? Just lor the
record, she's got two irons, but I
don't press the point.
Chris Kaley
West Drayton, Middlesex
• you cam physically conr\ect the 8000-
type dot matrix printer to the 9512, although
since the 8-drive on the 8000 machines is
the same disc type as the 9512 disc drives
you can simply pop your 9512 disc into the
86 8000 PLUS
35 12 B-dfm and print &te files on the
8512.
Although I haveni actually looked
inside the 9512, I'm assured that the wiring
for the B-drive is all there, so you can re-
instal your 8512 B-drive in the 9512. This
does mean that you won't be able to read
951! discs on your remaining 8000 A-drive
though, so you the answer to your first
question becomes W. Swings and
roundabouts, I'm afraid.
Of earn of database
|S0UP
Whilst you are all having your 10
o'clock break for coffee and fruit
and nut chocolate, may I take up a
little of your time to mention one of
your advertisers.
t recently rang Campbell
Systems to enquire if Mastertile
8000 would do the tiling, invoice
records and cross referencing I
require. I found them most helpful
and, having ordered the product, I
received it within 3 days. Although
computers are not second nature to
me, I found the manual very helpful
and the product excellent. Full
mar1«!l
J. Walker
Nottingham
Pilate hunter
1 am seeking a program which will
make it impossible to copy discs -
have you published such a listing,
or would you think it possible for a
reader adept at programming to
devise one?
Peter Ho u chin
Bridgwater, Somerset
• The uncopyable disc' is one ol those
dreams like perpetual nxtion -you can get
pretty close, but never quite there If any of
our readers have any ideas, we 'd be
pleased to publish them. Mind you, a really
unbreakable copy protection system would
be worth a torlune commercially.
In Ihe meantime, you can protect
BASIC programs by saving them with the
command sa <.'e "fiie.iame", p. Alter this,
they can be copied and nm normally but
not altered, so any copyright notice could
not be removed freal hackers know ways
round this though). Don't forget to keep an
unprotected working copy ot the program
tor yourself!
{STOP] and go ■
Having been given an Amstrad
851 2 by my family last Chnstmas I
set about learning BASIC and
grappling with 'Jetsam'. Eventually,
I arrived at a very worthwhile
program to quote for Fitted
Kitchens in our shop.
However, we sometimes
accidentally hit the [STOP] key
when striking the No. 1 key. The
computer then leaps out of the
program into the listing, thus all our
totals and variables are lost and
upon returning to the program we
have to start again from the
beginning.
Do you or any of your readers
know ot a way to disable the
[STOP] key, or make it work only in
conjunction with another? Amstrad
have been unable to help me.
Jacic Burt>age
Tavlstocit Kitchens, Maidenhead
• II you do accidentally breafc out of a
program, t^ing ccnt will allow you to
continue again. Alternatively, if you include
a line at the start ot the program saying
OPTION BiM then the [STOP} key will be
disi^ted,
Wrdng address?
About the dreaded missing address
mark. Your reply in Issue 1 3 to
Geoffrey C. Bland - and to other
sufferers in the past - makes me
wonder whether you have ever
actually used an 8512.
The problem only occurs
outside LocoScript (whidi has
inbuilt remedial measures) when
Double Density discs are mixed
with Single Density discs. If you
slick an SD disc into drive B
immediately after using a DD, you
will get the 'Track 1 , sector
missing address mark" message. If
you do the opposite [use a DD
immediately after an SD), the
bottom line of the screen will
scream 'Track 1 , sector no data".
When using application
programs, this crude system
message is usually translated, e.g.
as "disc fail" or "disc missing" or
"No data".
The reason is nothing to do with
faulty discs as you told Mr Bland,
nor is it necessary to use a disc
repair program to overcome the
difficulty. It is simply because CP/M
needs resetting on each disc
change. It can do without resetting
when discs of the same format are
used, Ijut not when formats are
mixed.
To reset, you bash the [STOP]
key (in most programs) or [ALT)+C.
However, if you forget to reset after
a disc change and get the "Retry-
Ignore-Cancel" message or some
translation of it, type "!" tor "Ignore"
and the disc will normally be
accepted and the directory will
amazingly reveal its contents,
Roger Greaves
Paris
tt There is something in what you say.
although this situation was only one of the
many that Mr. Bland saki he had disc
trouble with, '^our [STOPj key solution is
certainly the first thing to try when a disc
seems troublesome although advising
people to press {STOPj In the middle of
programs seems an unwise step, since in
many cases It will do just this - stop the
program.
Vicarious Sins
I find opposition to honest
education about alcohol by (a)
those who do not want their
comfortable social drinking
conventions disturtted, (b) by
vested Interests, and (c) by some
radio and television producers and
those magazines and newspapers
which have an irresponsible
attitude, suggesting that it is clever
or funny to drink. It should be said
plainly and frequently that alcohol is
a drug. A drug which has
immediate effects. In the short term
inducing irresponsibility and
reducing skills, judgments and
reaction time; in the long (erm of
course ill health.
Of recent years the press have
adopted the phrase "drunken
dnving" in reporting all drink drive
cases. This suggests a driver
visibly intoxicated: the truth is that a
driver who has taken any alcohol
whatsoever is unfit to drive.
\-
POSTSCRIPTn
Artolher phrase now being
encouraged is "alcohol abuse"
suggesting that moderate drinking
is safe.
Alcohol is a dangerous addictive
drug, a brain anaesthetic, in the
smallest doses immediateiy
attecting skills, reaction time,
physical and moral judgments;
Mucing Irresponsibility, resulting in
depression: and progressively
damaging heart, liver, brain,
pancreas and fat tissue leading to
strokes, high blood pressure,
infertility and loss of sexuality,
general illness and premature
death.
There is not a single system of
liie body that is immune to the
effects of alcohol. The only abuse
of alcohol is drinking it.
Please be more responsible in
yQjr articles.
Rev. R.W. Clements
Gorey, Jersey
t Using computers is a pmtty addictive
tobfiy, and now that you mention it many ot
the symptoms sound similar too!
Off t!>e wall
The LocoScript 2 wallchart is a
disaster! The only option open to
you is to make abject and
grovelling apology and reprint it
legibly.
I am a regular subscriber and
arr in general well pleased with the
magazine. In particular I found the
LocoScript 1 wallchart very useful
and legible, and had been looking
forward to the inevitable publication
of a LocoScript 2 wallchart. The
type size is at least half of the
previous and much of the text is
totally unreadable.
It really is so incredibly bad, in a
magazine of normally good quality,
that I find it almost unbelievable.
Roger T, Beeby
Leicester
• // IS tme that the print was much smaller
than on our previous chart, mainiy because
LocoScript 2 has many more menus ttiat
Locol. The printing on some copies seems
worse than others, so maybe you were
particularly untortwnate. Our apologies -
you could try taking the pages to a
photocopy shop and having them enlarged.
We do have plans to reprint the chart as a
M-size poster in the near lutuw.
Struck me as being about time I
wrong to your esteemed journal,
not to say assorted nice things
about it but put in an important
request.
Although as a rule I agree with
innovations and the forward march
of progress there is a certainty
development in the world of
magazines which is causing a great
deal of concern amongst a number
of us. Now, in all fairness your
organ is not guilty of this crime -
yet - but as with the rise of the likes
of McDonalds and the Blessed
Margaret it it quite possible that this
insidious, creeping canker upon the
fabric of society will in time make its
way to the West Country.
Thus it is my solemn duty to
warn you of this danger and humbly
request that you and your staff do
everything possible to prevent this
plague from overwhelming 8000
Plus. I am of course talking about
the march of the dreaded gunge
binding machines on so many
mags around today. You know the
thing, glossy news- print stuck into a
spine which falls to pieces after one
read. Not very good if you want to
keep the things to refer back to. So
now my plea from the heart:
PLEASE CONTINUE USING
STAPLES!!!
N.K. Bell
Milton Keynes
{ In the BASIC corner
I have just read the Basic Corner in
TipOffs of your Novernber issue.
Tip 1 is good advice. Use
integers wherever possible.
Furthermore, avoid double length
arithmetic where single length will
do!
Tip 2 is potentially misleading.
There is a tiny difference between
processing a variable and
processing a constant, but nowhere
near that in the example given. The
example is:
ID FOR i*=l TO 1000:a=3.1415
926535*3. 14 15926535 :NEXT
compared to:
10 b=3. 1415926535
20 FOR i%=l TO 1000:a=b*b:
NEXT
The second runs more than
three times as fast as the first. The
reason for this not that in the first
the values in the multiplication are
constants, while in the second they
are variables. The reason is that in
the first Mallard is doing double
length arithmetic, while in the
second it is doing single length
arithmetic. This is because Mallard
treats any constant which is quoted
to more than seven significant
digits are double length. The
assignment to b takes the double
length value and rounds it down to
single length. If you type in the first
program and LIST it out you wilt
see:
10 FOR i=l TO 1000 :a=3. 14159
26535#*3.141592e535#:NEXT
where the # indicates the value is
double length. Where constants
have seven or less digits there ts
very, very little difference in speed.
10 FOR i% TO 1000:a=3. 14159*
3.14159:NEXT
will run in much the same time as
the loop with b'b (but not as
accurately).
Tips 3 and 4 may produce faster
programs, but I am not convinced
that the difference is measurable.
Some BASIC implementations
perform a search of the symbol
table tor each variable each time it
is used, so that arranging for the
commonly used symbols to appear
early in the symbol table will help.
Some implementations search for
Seeing the light
up until this summer 1 had been
churning out political and hobby
magazines on a rapidly
deteriorating electric typewriter
which I would then laboriously,
after typing out various drafts,
retype into narrow columns,
photo reduce on a copier and
paste up with photos etc for a
master for an offset litho. Well,
after the nth breakdown of the
typewriter I was persuaded to get
an Amstrad. I had already thought
about this but the dot matrix
printer had always dissuaded me.
When I heard about the 9512 I
thought this was great and started
buying all the magazines I could
find so that when it came out I
would be as clued up as possible.
I also started a levy on
contributors to help pay for the
thing. Like no doubt many others
of your correspondents I have to
say I know nothing about
computers, nor, really, do I want
to know. No matter, your review
answered some questions that
ttie two other 'reviews' I had seen
hadn't even thought of asking.
Now a couple of comments.
As I have said I have read all four
now of the PCW magazines and
yours is by far. and I mean far,
and away the best of them.
Your biggest immediate bonus
is the Good Software File. This is
worth the cost of the magazine
alone. I'm astonished that none of
your rivals has yet realised this
and copied it. Hopefully you will
now be Indicating in each review
whether the package is useable
on the 951 2 so as to attract the
many new users to 8000 Plus.
Whatever else was in this issue
the middle page was stupendous.
Having just spent hours going
through the 9512 manual to find
out whether the 'total pages' i had
incorrectly entered last night in a
document might be found and
amended, so as to stop giving me
page 3 of 4 in what was a five
page document and, of course the
ultimate page 5 of 4, your plan
was just what I had been saying
to myself was needed as part of
the manual/tutorial.
Can you explain why one
salesman said that I had to use
DD2 discs while the other said
that CF2s would work but would
collapse more often? At another
shop I was told that CF2s are
DD2s which have failed the test,
whatever that is.
Kenneth Clark
Aberdeen
# Flattery will you everywhere.
Amstrad used to sell tm types of disc:
CF-2 and CF-2DD, the DD version
supposedly being a higher quality version
tor the 8512 double density (DD) B-dhve,
hence the 9512 disc drives. In fact.
Amstrad admitted viay back in mid-198S
that the two types were identical apart
from the colour ot the label put on them,
and they dropped the costlier DD type
altogether Therelore, on ofticial approval,
the CF2s will work fine with your 9512
Any DD discs still on sale are either not
Amsolt-branded discs or old stock. Buy
them il it makes you feel happier, but it
makes no difterence.
HAH<> op TMe ppiHTep. "^er, THOUGH"
8000 PLUS 87
POSTSCRIPT
line numbers each time they are
used, and some search from the
beginriing ot the program every
time. None of this is true of Mallard
BASIC, When Mallard first comes
upon a reference to a variable or a
line number it does perform a
search, but leaves enough
information so that the next
execution of that reference can
avoid the search.
In the case of variables Mallard
has a modes! indexing system to
improve the performance of the
initial search. In the case of line
numbers Mallard will search from
the beginning of the program if the
destination lies before the current
line, otherwise it searches forwards
from the current line.
I will sell you a complete
LocoScript 2 for £19.95. II you paid
£30 for these tips I would say you
were overcharged!
G.M.C. Hall
Locomotive Software, Dorking
• Thanks iof the clarifications: obvioijsly
Mallard is more sophisHcated that we
thought, suit, any feaders who have to live
with BASIC on vastly interior computers
can still benetit from the tips.
We'll gladly pay £19.95 for LocoScript
2 - provided ot course that includes the
publication rights, I am sure we could
license the rights back to you lor a
modestly huge sum.
jlCW upgrades?
AERE Harwell have just installed
their new CRAY-2 supercomputer.
The RAM has a two billion byte
capacity and the computer can
perform 1 ,700 million calculations
each second. There are 240.000
integrated circuits involved and the
waste heat generated by all this
high speed work is. wait for it, 195
kilowatts. No they don't open the
windows to keep cool, they pump
200 gallons of fluorocarbon through
the circuits and thence to two
1 00k W heat exchangers.
The installation is valued at
£13,000,000. Now if Alan Sugar
could only make enough of them...f
Jim French
Fainfouth, Cornwall
G^rieaite^gy in action
I was very interested to read David
Hawgood's Planting the Family
Tree in October's Issue. I find PAF
to be a very useful and powerful
series of integral programs.
Its manual must t>e one of the
very i>est to be found for any type
of program for use with the PCW -
both in clarity and quality. To
criticise PAF for not being able to
produce family trees is
unreasonable; in my experience,
whilst a family tree may look
frightfully impressive, I have yet to
see one which is even slightly
comprehensible to anyone's Great
Aunt Maud.
PAF, however, is far from l>eing
ideal when entering large numbers
of individuals at any one time. The
reason (or this is that the serious
user needs to make time-
consuming switches between its
Personal Researcher (names,
relationships and dates etc).. Notes
(occupations etc). Research Data
Filer (as-yet unrelated people etc)
and back to Personal Researcher.
This switching about has to take
place with every individual entered
and it is both boring and time
consuming.
I therefore use PAF in addition
to Sagesoft's Retrieve database
program. For the latter, I have
designed each record to hold 31
fields which allows for all the
necessary genealogical information
to be entered in full - without
having to resort to any non-
standard abbreviations.
Judging by the letters which I
Free market economy
Having recently returned from
Seville, I'm just dropping in a
note to say there is a very
colourful story to be had there.
Each Sunday a market day is
held and anything from burnt out
valves to Nazi daggers and
authentic Roman coins dug out
from (he major monuments can
be bought.
But outstanding are the stalls
set out alongside the lemon and
garlic vendors where pirate
copies of all ttie latest programs
can be bought from 7-12 year
old gypsy boys who are
apparently fully briefed on such
items as LocoScript 2,
Hitch Hikers etc. Amstrad are
particularly popular in Spain. The
programs are sold with
photocopied manuals, and the
price comes to around £1 5 to
£20. or less for regulars.
I myself saw at least seven
stalls set up selling programmes
for Amstrad and Spectrum. All
this is apparently of no interest to
' Me-UL , weve &crr To s-rMfoKf
the police who equally ignore the
drugs and prostitution which
feature in this bizarre market
Dominique Jan Searle
Gibraltar
receive almost daily from people
using other programs, there does
not appear to be a better
combination of tools for use with
the PCW8512 than PAF, Retrieve
and LocoScript 2.
J. Ian Todd
Lei ant, Cornwall
As an enthusiastic family historian it
was marvellous to see the
popularity of the hobby recognised
by the article Planting t!^e Family
Tree in the October issue.
Though I haven't used Personal
Ancestral File. I do have the other
genealogical program mentioned.
Genny from DCS Software, and
suggest that this deserved more
than the passing reference it
received. As the writer said, this is
very simple to use, and does not
involve disc swapping. It has lots of
facilities, such as browsing through
the records, displaying any person
(even multiple matches if you give
imprecise information), searching
for places, occupations etc..
alphabetical listout, family group
displays, descent and birth brief
charts, maledemale line trace back
to the earliest known ancestor etc.
"soundlike" people or places.
J. Hewson
Nottingham
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For^OESKTOP PUBUSHER"i»enL A comptate
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CASH VAT Kcplact» j^our p«tt>%aiK booh. T)rpr«d
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WOfiD COUNT DISC for LocoHripi ££.?5
Complew gLudt to Locownpi i2,95. Poiuje uvSudwd
Money - tuck {uarvftBe. ^^th, 27 Wocxbtock Dnve,
UKhrKig*. Mid<tte« J. U^ 1 8EG, W 0fl9 5 &7ef? 1 6
GRAPHICS on yOur PCW uivi} C N( yOu wOuW itkc
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LOCOSCFUPT 3 keybovd re^^nitnn UEllliy. Sct
chumerr wnh or wittiout iccenCi to ke^ of your
cho<4 tor UM with* LoccHcrlpt 1 Tekj^. 7 Cypr*H
Wilk. Huelmere. Butki. HP I S 7 RF ft (04^49 1 ) t^SM
WAKTED - Buddtnt Rupen Murdoch jeeb as 1 2
Md p*-inur with or without Dcdttop Publittwi^
SpfCwve. Bob hli^K, 31 Gr^wra H<l( StrHt. Al>rdne,
ML6 TEN tt 02^ &«?a3
PROFESSIONAL CP/M BUSINESS
SOFTWAIU Oesttop Hanagert Utilitie* »nd
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Hkr-vood 9 (02S4J SBB 1 07 Mortday, WcdAtidiy or
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DISCS DAMAGEDr DATA LOST7 rtpvrit&^Kt
service for all Y disc profaleim. MO ChlA RGE. but
{tonitiOA} lO CANCEft Charrty, BACUP inviwd. Send
duff due + bbnh diK -ii- return poii:a£« to E>avid S^iih
4 1 TLTtiham Way, Paddock Wood, Kent, TN 1 3 AUA
S (09928^ &S74)
SECRETS OF GHOSTWRfTING Succeuful
uehor RKhard Wetniter revejih how to earn fjbuloMi
tncame In 39-p4ge, I^.OOO-word booldCL £5 poat-frw:
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USE YOUR PCW tocarn yourself big TPOttCy,
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PCW F ILE - Bi-mont hly ntwtktur For uMn
interested In Publk Domain, uticlesctc. €7 for Six
OSuoSOrtl.WrorUfTipJt, Chen Brywtt 1 1 Ftiwefwww
Rcud, SeiLon, Devon EX 1 2 2PF « 0397 2045^
DAMAGED CHSCSt drwe A; datl recovery to new
CF3 disc send ^ +discorEsae for detajit to WD
Alkin, 2B Whijtter Ck«. Blackdim. Bas^r^stoke.
RG3I 3HN
LOCOSCRJPT TUmON Manchester u^ea. Pnvate
O* group wO<TJpr««lirig tuition templua etc Plw
other si?ftware lessons. Reasonable r^tes. Mrs l^nley
a (« I ) W3 5677
ARE YOU LEARNING BASIC but puiil*d by
JetSVTT? Our UKrIul »nd tutorial unpro(e<t«l prograins
W3ll help: disc mannuil: £?.S0 M.C S. 4? Cogate RAld,
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TAXI/PRIVATE HIRE OPERATORS duabae
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mikKgeL iquounom etc effective. Due manialr £9.50
M-CS. 4? CDfit* Roid. PKldCKk V^'ood,
Kent TNH &UD « {0893S3) 30S&
LOGOS. ARTWORK DESIC MED/MOD IFIED;
PCW printable via Masie^M-int, DTP, htew»d*lk.
FtwutiteL Otheir products: LocoKJ'ipt i keyboard
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DATA TRANSFERRED becween PCW i" d»u and
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AMSTRAD PCW INTRODUCTION AND
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PCW «£« wrth SUK RAM Intk used £300 including
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LOCOSCRIPT I B 3 trvimg it bot^c (or office)
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PITCW J7 AND OTHER MUSICAL
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dlJC Lucy Scale Developments. 96DA f ulhom Road,
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MIRA PCW USER GROUP are boking fo< rrtw
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DeiwiUHvy WF I 3 3JW. Discounts on soFtvnre through
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FOR SALE PCWa3S6 with discs, manuals etc
i»KM"flg B4tmvi 3nd Tomsh^n^k , Atnolgce ly as new
trder warranty till Manh 1 9Se I27i. Mnt Camr
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B000+ ts a great m^aiine make full use of irOuT back
issues witb a confl^temed index. £6,SDor SAE (for
Informatian) toJUKEN ENTERPRISES. 4 BB»lt
Wood Oriv*. Southampton 503 3PT
HOME ACCOUNTS Why piy [*■ more than you
need : Bank. Budget, Cre-drt. Revenue and Capital
AcGounti ■ Staf^nng oftitn . Selective Printouts:
Instant Balances : l^nuai : £ 1 S or 6eas\i I VKdatl,
30 Repior^ Wa^, Rickmanjwonh, ED J JPW
RECIPES ^Stores recipes eitb*r in detail or by boo^c
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PROGRAMMER . Teaches you to set up your owm
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GOLF CLUB MANAGER : Memnership details and
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and Invotclng. address 1ab<Hlin£, locker listmg Oettih .
VKdauu 30 Repton Way, Rlckmmswonh. WO ■! IPW
FOR SALE ; AMSTRAD PCI 5 1 2HD30 with cokxjr
monitor and mouse : Still inder iiarr^tce : Son>e
toltwar* : Dhion's b*ii price £ 103385 : My prtce £925
: ft 093 3 77%70 : Watford arm
ON-SITE TRAINING wrthin 1 00 miles of
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ft 0202 762401 (34hrs)
SPEAKEASY 2, 1 DATABASE Unkxk jetsam
power - the PCW's built in databst - ■mlh
SPEAKEASY 1. 1 , Mervg driven interface Full Help
Unlflue natural Unguage queneV £ 1 9.9S. Cheques,
P.O V f*RELUDt. 1 13 Trinity Close, Kesgrawv,
IpiwiCh, Suffo^
PCW «5 12 FOR SALE All discs irwduded Real«tic
oftars over £ 350,00, ft 04S4 (Tate, Avon) 323S4S
Ask to apeak ta Andrew or iHvfi mcuagton
imwering mKhine.
7>iis new section of the magazine offers you
ihe ch^ce to spsak directly to the huge
y^iting world of PCW owners.
You can place an ad of up to 30 words Jor
just £7.50. So you could use it to sell d.
or launch a user group or publicise a piece of
software you've written.
One thing you CANT advertise is the sale
or swap of softw^are you've purchased. Such
ads can be misused by software pirates.
To place an adt just fill in this application
fofm and send it to us together with payment.
We'll then place the ad in the nesct available
issue (published 2-7 weeks after we receive
your order).
Send this form to: 8000 PLUS SmalfAds, Future Publishing Ltd, 4 Queen Street, B^th, Avon &A I lEJ
ORDER FORM
Nvna
Address
Please place the following advertisement in the next available issue of 8000 PLUS
, I endose payment of £7.50 by Cheque / P.O. / Access / Vba.
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SEND NOW FOR OUR CHRISTMAS CATALOGUE!
DATA SWITCH BOX: Provides easy switching of data from PCW to 2 outlets: Printer/Micros/Modems
No more constaflt plugging & unplugging. Special kit for PCW users includes cables. BOX: £26.95 KIT: £29.95
j SEAL'n TYPE: Protective keyboard cover through which f -,
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All prices are totally inclusive. Send cheque/PO payable to: KADOR P.O. Box 20, Ashford, Middx. TW 1 5 3QE
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Micro Simplex Accounts ... 90.95
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Enqrtluoft ..
GoodeSchwan ..
HW .-..„.-
►fediott _
MiVolO|s
CT...
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Chttsffa ^
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Kador ErTterpnsa
Kjnwch Cornfuitrj „
UadFVi..
CiyviKiSyiwni
Copy Cornn ...__.........
Croiffl . „.
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Dauinu „„_
Oigrta InlemKicnjI
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Loccmoun S)ntam ..
MAfi_
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PlHEbctronia.
tV&
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-.38
MC -.„.
EtichdiinSoftira^ ..
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sal Dm
7)
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Trojan..
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WWiC
WoiMwide-
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. 47
%
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Af£ll^ LOWER PRICES AND„.
EVEN BETTER SERVICE!
Now ALL Goods Despatched SAME DAY by ist CLASS POST- FREE!
' / / / / I \ \ \ \ \
X
3'OISKS
V
PRINTER RIBBONS
Genuine AMSTRAD Printer Ribbons...
Better Quality-Lower Price!
•NEW PCW CARBON ES.95
•STANDARD PCW E4.95
•DMP 2000/3000 t4.95
All Ribbons-POST FREE!
Please Specify Printer when Ordering
PAPER
• High Quality }Y'x 9W
• 60gsm Weight
• Micro-Perf all Round
• 2000 Sheets -
ONLY
£14.95
PCW SOFTWARE SPECIALS
• LOCOMAIL (Amsoft)
THE MAIL MERGE PROGRAM.
• LOCOSPELL (Amsoft)
THE SPELLING CHECKER
• NEWSDESK [NTERNATIOIMAL
{The Electric Studio) f*ji ji
THE DESKTOP PUBLISHING SYSTEM— l.***t
• SUPERCALC 2 (Amsoft) f» Jl Jl
THE SPREADSHEET _. t*l4
• f^ASTERFtLE 8000 (Campbell Systems)
THE DATABASE
FREE! Blank Disk wittr each of me above
Software Specials.
PCW STARTER PAK
•10 CF2 Disks
•1 AMS 2DL Box
•2000 Sheets of Paper
•1 PCW Carbon Ribbon
High Quality PVC
Dust Cover Sel (for pcw)
How to Order...
•We welcoiw cittal vrinen |Micha» orilers ttorn pic's.
90wnm«nt iwl Mucatiofial esiatiJishrnsnts elc. Goods
■ill tx despticliod on leoeipl ol tudei. 28 da/ inm« wW
Fclkiw
•Overaess orto^' tili^ Heducl VAT |l$%) Dm M
li% lor sir miil gnd Insunneo. {All psymMs In t
sterling)
•All prices (iMiiirfe VAT Prices ai« delirery ^ea to
£49.95
SAVE ALMOST £ 9 ! Post Free!
NEW IN STOCK
£9.95
^Simply lisl yow Order, name and full addr^ wilh a
cheqiie or p^l ordsr [rTiad& payaN^ to Co^pufnaitl ^rid
po&l to our a{[c[f ess opposite or -
•Ptioiie any o) our 3 £>rdet lines [24 hours) anct onje;
inJiHf your aedil ard. PlEase give ycKif full nams and
atMress. daytime Phone numter. detalia di your order and
Ihe name of the nugazine you are ofdering Irofn.
9AII goods ars irsudSly despatched ^anne day—
1^ class post- FR£E OF CHARGE'
•For SPEEDir GUAHAKTEED NEXT DAY DELIVERY by
SECURICOR, Please add iUST ^ to goods total
1
A GREAT DEAL mORE-FOR A GOOD DEAL LESS!
COMPUMART'DeptBO'¥- Unit B'Faicon Street
Louglttorougn ■ Leics - LEIJ lEH
a? 0509-262259/233893/266322
COMl'l I I'M
m
SI VY' [A lis
KEEP A ' CLEAR-HEAD' AND IMPROVE
YOUR COMPUTERS PERFORMANCE
rOlU Um HEAD CLEANING Kir
Only t 9 ■ 9 D
Dealers enquiries welcome Please send A4 SAE for
Dealer Pack and Sample. Strictly written enquiries only.
HOW TO
ORDER
13
I ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT AND FREE NATIONWIDE DELIVERY I
POST- PHONE:-(0273)726331 DEUVERY:-
Simp»y list your orctet, nameandaddmss, CXir Express Hotline on027372633in0 All goods wM nofmaltv twdespaichedsame
enclose a cheque of postal order (made Sr»s, 24 htmral and <xdof quoting yow orodit (fay by Isi class post - fr™ of chafse
payable to 'SBS Computef Supplies') or '^"' numtwi. name. fuH postal address and Ovemighi deliuBfies by arrsngefneni
your credit card detafls to ttw full address dayi»tiejjhqne™jn*«andtt»[tept.numb« Wte welcome purchase ontetshomcommw ■
I VISA
below.
on the address below.
cial. educational and government establish-
ments and also orxJers from overseas.
DEPT 312 SBS COMPUTER SUPPLIES LTD. NEWTOWN ROAD HOVE SUSSEX BN3 7BA
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